


Nobody's Empire

by le_mru



Series: Three Imaginary Boys [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anti-Werewolf Prejudice, Bisexual Sirius Black, Dom/sub Undertones, Explicit Language, First War with Voldemort, Gay Regulus Black, Gay Remus Lupin, Horcruxes, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, OR IS IT, Period-Typical Homophobia, Purebloods being amazed and puzzled by Muggle things, Regulus Black Lives, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Unforgivable Curses (Harry Potter), Unrequited Crush, blood supremacy referenced, that sucks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:42:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 59,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21550954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/le_mru/pseuds/le_mru
Summary: Rescued by Remus and Sirius from the dangers of the Crystal Cave, Regulus goes into hiding, viciously hunted by former acquaintances and relatives as a turncoat that gave away the Dark Lord's greatest secret. As it is, he's mostly trying not to die or go barking mad living with his temperamental brother and his werewolf boyfriend as they search for an artifact that might turn the tide of the war.
Relationships: Regulus Black & Sirius Black, Regulus Black/Remus Lupin, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Three Imaginary Boys [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536217
Comments: 97
Kudos: 174





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! The story hinted at in [Lover is a Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20281795) just couldn't give me a break, so here it is: R.A.B lives, the sequel. The following chapters are in the works. Enjoy and let me know if you like it!

He moves into Lupin’s old bedroom. There’s a dead plant on the windowsill and an unmoving Muggle poster on the wall, depicting a frizzy-haired woman with heavy make up. Not much furniture: a desk, a crooked wardrobe and a bare mattress on the floor, and it’s all so dingy and miserable and mismatched that he sits down on the edge of the mattress and drops his head into his hands. It seems so irrevocable and final now; he’ll never lie down on his childhood bed in his room again and never join Mother for afternoon tea and never go home for Christmas with everyone either, it’s over, he’s on his own.

Sirius ducks his head into the room.

“I’ve brought you some sheets for the mattress,” he says, voice at half its normal volume. “It’s not what you’re used to, is it? Guess I’ve got a headstart on you.”

He stands over Regulus, as if pondering something, and then just dumps the duvet and cases on the mattress and leaves. Regulus hears Lupin’s voice in another room, asking a question. Sirius barks something back at him, then they both laugh.

He should probably make up his own bed for the first time in his life--what a momentous occasion--but he’s so tired it’s a lot easier to just lean back and drop into the mattress, which at least is comfortably soft.

It’s a bad idea. He’s immediately back in the inky, sticky darkness in which things moved, unnatural things. His throat seizes up as if choking on water. He jerks upright, hands flying to his neck, and gives a panicked wheeze. The gray wall of Lupin’s depressing room grounds him: he’s safe. For a given value of _safe_.

There are footsteps in the hall and someone knocks on the doorway tentatively. It’s Lupin.

“We’re sitting down for some supper if you’d like to join us,” he says. There’s a kind smile on his scarred face.

Regulus feels compelled to return that kindness, and if he does, then he should probably join them and not play the spoiled child noble offended by the low thread count of the sheets. He gets up and follows Lupin--who is shuffling comfortably in his slippers, ankles sticking out of too-short trousers--to the kitchen, where Sirius is making sandwiches. He’s herded to a place at the table that obviously has been long unused, if ever, judging from the pile of old newspapers that he needs to push out of the way to make space for his plate, and served steaming tea and sandwiches.

The domesticity of it all is, quite frankly, a shock to his system.

“So,” Sirius says, gulping down dangerously hot tea. “We’ve got a ton of wards on this place. We’ve just reset them to include you, but you should not be showing hide nor hair outside of this flat. Are we clear on that?”

Regulus nods. He’s still shocked into silence and just sips his tea.

“Good. Like we discussed earlier, I will be looking into the artifacts using my connections at work.” Sirius sends a knowing glance in Lupin’s direction. “And Remus will stay with you.”

Lupin doesn’t seem terribly excited at the prospect. Regulus tries to recall what he does for a living, but doesn’t think it has ever come up in their encounters, limited as they were.

“You will be working on the research from Dumbledore,” Sirius continues, the stern look on his face exactly like their father’s, not that he’d ever dare to tell that to Sirius. “Hoping to discover how to--get rid of that thing you’ve found.” He gives a shudder, then, suddenly, rounds on Regulus. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Yes, right, Sirius.” He nods and rolls his eyes. “We’ve been through this already. I know. I’m aware of--what my situation is.”

“Do you think they will be looking for you already?” Lupin asks and takes a bite out of a sandwich. His teeth are quite large. Do werewolves have larger teeth?

“Hard to say.” Regulus shrugs. Sirius is watching him, eyes narrowed. “Like I’ve told you already. I’ve been elusive for a while, so it could go either way: Snape has probably come to the conclusion I’m flaking out, so he’ll be suspicious, but to the others I’m known to miss a meeting or two. Unless it’s supposed to be the entire organization, of course.”

Sirius grimaces. His right leg is jiggling constantly under the table.

“I’m still not sure if a safehouse isn’t a safer bet,” he says to Lupin. “And this place--”

“Is warded up to the ceiling,” Lupin says calmly. “Like you just said. And under the radar of most Purebloods. No, I think that going on as usual is the best thing we can do now. Which also means--” he puts his hand rather forcefully on Sirius’ knee under the table, stilling it. “--that you can’t be acting like a crazy bugger, like you’re doing now. If anyone suspects anything, they’ll look you up first.”

Regulus hides his smile behind his sandwich. Sirius glares daggers at him.

“No funny business, all right?” He points his index finger at Regulus. “If this is just an elaborate ruse--”

Regulus winces and closes his eyes. It’s the darkness again, things grabbing at him. A splash, someone in the water.

“It’s not,” he says, welcoming the sight of their shabby kitchen. “I want to--”

He’s not certain what he really wants to do now. Not die, probably. But other than that? His thoughts are scattered and fuzzy and he wants to cry a little bit, like he did sometimes in the privacy of his own bed at school, curtains closed. He wonders if Sirius ever cries. He has never seen him do that, even during that last row with Mother.

“You’re probably exhausted,” Lupin says, breaking him out of his reverie. “Why don’t you go lie down?”

“I will do just that. Please excuse me.”

He’s struggling with the sheets when he hears the previously distant voices move closer, to the other bedroom.

“You don’t have to be so hard on him, Sirius.” Lupin’s voice isn’t even hushed. They probably aren’t used to anyone being around to overhear. “He’s been through a lot.”

“Really?” Sirius seems incredulous and angry. “He’s a Death Eater, Moony. Maybe I should have been harder on him back when it mattered.”

“Don’t blame yourself. He’s just missguided.”

Sanctimonious pricks, the both of them. Sorted into the right house, hand-picked by Dumbledore for his underground army, telling him he was _missguided_. He hears a loud, telling sigh and some rustling and hastily gets back to making the bed.

He’s still in what he put on yesterday morning, back at home, hand-picked out of his spacious wardrobe. It’s all stiff with salt and smells of brine, so he strips to his pants and lies down. Sleep doesn’t come easy: each time he closes his eyes, he’s back to that place, the darkness, the freezing water. He expected it to be the last thing he’d ever done in his life and in the space of a second all of his failures and regrets flashed before his eyes, just before he was dragged underwater. He thought he was going to die. No--he was dying. Then a dark shape in the water. Someone coming for him.

He finally falls asleep, but it’s fitful and exhausting rather than rejuvenating. When he wakes up, it’s late, judging from the light and the traffic outside. He glances at his wrist, but they left his watch in the cave, along with his dragonhide boots, to make it seem like he’s never left. It was Lupin’s idea. Regulus limped to Dumbledore’s office barefoot.

He drags himself from the bed and into the living room. The flat seems empty and all the more gloomy without the warmth of human presence. There are dishes set out in the kitchen with a note saying _I’m out shopping. Will be back by 10:00 - R_. A plate is hiding three miserable, floppy pancakes and the teapot is still warm.

After breakfast, he conducts a thorough revision of Sirius and Lupin’s toiletries. He’s loath to use the same products as his brother but it seems inevitable in these circumstances, so he runs the shower and scrubs himself clean with everything he can find. He’s inspecting his ruined, half-burned off Dark Mark when the wards at the front door drop with a hiss not unlike a candle going out.

He’s crouched in fighting stance with his wand out before he even has time to think.

“It’s me,” Lupin says, muffled through the door. “I’ve brought you something to wear. I’m leaving it just outside.”

“Okay.” He inhales shakily. “Thanks.”

Lupin waits for a beat, as if listening in, then walks away from the door. Regulus can hear him moving in the living room, tinkering with something and making music play. He doesn’t recognize it, but then he has no knowledge of anything Muggle.

The outfit Lupin’s picked out for him is a pair of black slacks and a white button-up shirt plus a blazer. They are very plain and of poor quality, but fit startlingly well for clothes that are not bespoke. Lupin’s even thought of the basics, such as socks and underpants and Regulus has the opportunity to feel extremely self-conscious putting on briefs picked out by another bloke.

“How’s the fit?” Lupin looks up when Regulus comes into the living room, twitching in unfamiliar fabrics. “Ah. Looks good. I wasn’t sure what to pick. Ultimately, I’ve decided to go with something resembling what I’ve seen you wear before.”

“Thank you,” Regulus says, with feeling. Lupin’s really must have made an effort, especially considering that he himself is dressed in a pair of hideous corduroy trousers and a beige jumper. “I suppose robes are a no-go?”

“I don’t think they’ll compliment a Muggle disguise, no. Sirius will be doing some more shopping for you today or tomorrow, until then you can probably borrow his clothes, if you need anything else.”

Regulus pulls a face at that, with a sudden flashback to dressing as Sirius for his stint with Polyjuice. There’s a sparkle of amusement in Lupin’s eyes, as if he’s thinking of the same thing as he looks Regulus up and down, evidently satisfied with his work. Regulus scratches at his forearm, uncomfortable under this kind of scrutiny. He’s never grown to Sirius’ size, either in height or width, like he was a knock-off of a more successful version, and he suspects he is being compared to the original.

It seems that his new life will begin with an induction into the Muggle way of life, since Lupin shows him around the two-bedroom flat in painful detail as Regulus politely pretends not to be massively underwhelmed. He’s expected Sirius to pour Alphard’s money into one of the posh townhomes in a better neighbourhood, or at least into the interior of an unassuming Muggle building. Perhaps this is just the continuation of his rebellion or proof that he’s not as good at his liberated lifestyle as he’d like to be, or maybe he wanted to level with Lupin, who is probably used to such meager conditions.

There’s probably no return to his cashmere cravats and elf-prepared meals, at least not in the foreseeable future anyway, or maybe ever, so he goes along with instructions on how to operate the stove, the washing machine and the refrigerator, as well as other smaller appliances.

“Excuse me,” Regulus says finally, accepting that he might sound like a Pureblood twat. “Do you really want me to believe that Sirius is using these on a regular basis?”

“Some of them maybe not as often as I’d like, but yes, he is,” Lupin replies, eyebrows arched. “You know, cleaning magic only goes so far. Though I don’t suppose you had a lot with that, did you?”

Regulus opens his mouth for a retort, but nothing comes to mind and he deflates. Lupin shakes his head and sighs.

“It’s like Sirius all over again, I swear. I should get a medal for this.”

“Thank you for the orientation,” Regulus says. He might not have anything left than his bloody manners and his name, so at least he’ll make use of one of them. “If you need me to do anything, I would be obliged.”

“I will definitely not hesitate to tell you.” Lupin looks around, arms akimbo. “All right, I need to get some work done. You’d better get started on that research, I think.”

Regulus wrinkles his nose, not exactly happy with being ordered around, either, but it’s not like he has any other choice. Lupin lugs in a stack of books from Dumbledore’s library, dumps them on the coffee table and settles down in the opposite corner of the living room with something out of his own collection. Right, he’s the resident Defense expert. Regulus is itching for a smoke but his cigarettes drowned somewhere in that cursed lake and he doesn’t expect Lupin to whip out a pack and offer one just like that.

He makes a research nest for himself on the sofa, but focusing proves a challenge, what with the constant low-key fear and unfamiliar, tinkly Muggle music in the background. The street outside is bustling with roaring vehicles and loud-voiced Muggles. He finds himself missing the library at home, but that’s a dangerous path, leading to missing the living room, the kitchen and the lone, uncomprehending, misinformed inhabitant therein.

Left alone with a werewolf in a locked up, warded apartment--here’s a nightmare scenario for many of his mates--or ex-mates, rather. Only the werewolf in question isn’t looking very bloodthirsty, but a little bit under the weather. What the hell do they do on the full moon, when he stops being a polite Welshman and wants to rip Sirius’ throat out? He’ll probably find out in three weeks or so, if he lives that long.

Other than pale and tired, Lupin stays remarkably cool for someone dropped into this situation by virtue of sleeping with Sirius. Regulus is quite puzzled about their whole arrangement, all the more now that he’s seen the extent of its domesticity. This is a full-on shared household, with Sirius doing _chores_ and _preparing meals_ and Lupin folding his bloody socks and--he’d rather not think about their bedroom, that’s just too embarrassing. He’s actually fairly sure this has been going on since school, but while he gets Lupin’s appeal for Sirius (mostly that of the forbidden fruit), what the hell is it about Sirius for Lupin? It’s not like his brother has many redeeming qualities that aren’t of the superficial kind, and Regulus doesn’t peg Lupin for a superficial bloke.

“Is anything the matter?” Lupin asks, having noticed Regulus’ blank stare. “The werewolf is really going to refrain from eating you for the moment, no need to worry.”

“It’s not about that.” He averts his eyes and eh, he might as well ask. “Do you happen to have a--a cigarette?”

Lupin clicks his tongue and looks around.

“I think Sirius has some stashed in the kitchen. Let me look.”

They throw the window wide open and sit on the windowsill, blowing the smoke outside. He lights Lupin’s cigarette with a flick of his fingers and settles against the frame. It’s ridiculous, smoking with his brother’s werewolf boyfriend in a Muggle neighbourhood, Snape would keel over with shock if he saw this. Or would he? He’s always been a little suspicious of Regulus, as if Sirius wasn’t the deviation from the norm, but rather Regulus was, and Snape was just anticipating his defection from their ranks. And now--who would have thought.

They team up for the research in the afternoon and by the time Sirius returns they’ve actually managed to divide and conquer the reading lists and main questions and assumptions. Sirius comes bearing takeaway for dinner, slightly ill-fitting, boring clothes for Regulus and a list of questions the Order wants their resident ex-Death Eater to address, most of which Regulus is unable to answer due to his low status in the organisation.

“You know it’s going to help you to be helpful to us,” Sirius barks at him when he shrugs helplessly at another question.

“I am not lying or omitting anything. I honestly don’t know these things.”

“Like hell you don’t. What the fuck were you doing there if you don’t know anything?”

“Not kissing up to Voldemort or his closest cronies, which is a requirement to go any further than I did,” he snaps, crossing his arms on his chest. “You know, they actually didn’t trust me all that much because of you.”

Sirius shakes his head and sits back against the sofa, legs stretched under the coffee table.

“That’s somewhat difficult to believe. I think you realize that.”

“Listen to me, Sirius.” Regulus leans forward and catches Sirius’ eye. “If they ever catch me, I am dead anyway. _Nothing_ I could do now will save me from Voldemort’s wrath. The sooner you operate on the same assumption, the better for both of us. All of us, actually,” he adds, glancing at Lupin, who pretends to be reading the newspaper. “So if anything, you can believe me when I say that I harbour no hope nor intention of going back and as such am as forthcoming with you as I can be.”

Sirius’ face does that odd thing where it’s trying to emote too many things at the same time, since Sirius has obviously inherited the explosive expressiveness from Mother, while Regulus runs colder and deeper, like Father, which has earned him insults such as _cold fish_ or _unfeeling monster_ during their teenage arguments.

“Reg.” Sirius sighs. Regulus flinches at the use of his childhood nickname. “I think you know why I’m having--issues with this situation.”

“No, why?”

“Because you’ve found a very convenient time to defect!” Sirius is gearing up, his voice getting consistently louder. “Why now, huh? Didn’t it cross your mind earlier that maybe Bellatrix or the Lestrange brothers aren’t very stellar company? That all that shite Voldemort is spewing isn’t worth listening to? Really?”

“What was I supposed to do, Sirius? May you enlighten me?”

“Leave, you were supposed to leave!” Sirius roars, jumping to his feet. “Like I did!”

Lupin is suddenly up as well, hands raised in a placating gesture. They both ignore him.

“Don’t you understand?” Regulus sneers. “Only one of us could leave, and you bowed, thanked everyone and took that exit. And then I was all they had left. The only son. The only heir. Imagine--can you imagine what _this_ will do to Mother?!”

“Oh, yeah.” Sirius snorts. “Mummy dear. That old hateful crone that never--”

“Do _not_ talk about her like this!”

“Oh, so I shouldn’t be calling her a _crone_? After the things she called _me_ during our last conversation?!” Sirius suddenly rounds on Lupin, who shrinks back the slightest bit. “Do you know what she said to me, Moony, when I was about to leave the warmth of our family hearth--”

“You were hellish to everyone back then, Sirius--”

“Oh, yes, and this one,” Sirius points his index finger accusingly at Regulus, “was entirely content to watch the whole thing from the sidelines, never one to put himself in the line of fire--”

“How could you say that _now_?!” Regulus yells, enraged. “Fuck you, Sirius!”

“All right, all right.” Lupin slips in between the two of them, hands up at the level of his chest like an Auror negotiator. “Let’s all take a breath here. I know this is difficult for both of you, but it won’t serve anyone to--”

“No, fuck _you_ ,” Sirius growls at Regulus, turns on his heel and stomps into the kitchen.

He’s left with Lupin, who throws him an exasperated look, shakes his head and goes after Sirius. Regulus presses himself into the couch, fighting angry tears. He’s always been prone to bouts of crying of intense emotion, which often prompted derision from Sirius or his housemates at school. What’s worse, he can’t not think about Mother now, left all alone in that gloomy house and worrying about him, maybe even grieving him already, her lifelong ambition in shambles--no sons, no legacy in her world. Regulus knows in his heart of hearts that he would have disappointed her anyway, sooner or later, because he wasn’t about to marry Adelina Selwyn, like Mother hoped he would, and even if he hadn’t managed to get out of the betrothal, there would have been no heirs anyway. Fortunately, the war took care of that for him: the marriage was put off until _things settle down_ , i.e. Voldemort takes over Wizarding Britain and the Sacred 28 reign supreme. That knowledge doesn’t dull anything he is feeling right now.

“Padfoot,” he can hear Lupin in the kitchen say. “Come on. This isn’t going away. You have to handle it somehow.”

“I know.” Sirius barks. There’s some clinking and the sound of liquid hitting glass. “It doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“No, but just think about it. These days--it’s a bloody miracle that you got him back. People are losing family members, not gaining them. You should seriously start appreciating that.”

“Maybe other people’s families aren’t twats,” Sirius says flatly.

“Maybe you’re a twat too,” Lupin supplies and laughs, probably at Sirius’ expression. “I only say that with the utmost affection!”

Sirius grumbles something in response and Regulus can picture them in the warm light of the kitchen: Lupin’s arms looped around his brother’s waist, or around his shoulders, his warm eyes on Sirius’ angry ones. It makes him faintly sick, so he gathers up his notes and scampers off to his room to brood and ignore the itching feeling in his left forearm all alone.

Back in the cave, underwater, he was saying goodbye to life as cold hands dragged him to the bottom. Then, he saw a figure in the water, alight with the bluish glow of a charm. Long black hair flowing around a pale familiar face--it was Sirius, because who else could it be? Sirius jumped into the freezing water for him, drove away the horrible things and dragged him to the surface.

In the evening, he writes down the meeting locations and codes he can recall and slinks into the living room, where Sirius is watching Muggle moving pictures, sprawled on the sofa.

“Thanks.” Sirius looks up from the list, surprised. “This is going to be really useful to us.”

“It’s also my death sentence, once they figure out I’m gone. I hope you realize that.”

Sirius nods stiffly, looking up at him with a hangdog expression.

“Do you want to sit down?” he asks gruffly.

“Oh. Sure.”

He sits down next to Sirius and looks at the screen, where there are funnily dressed Muggles running about. He can’t make heads or tails out of it no matter how hard he tries. Sirius heaves a sigh and throws an arm onto the back of the sofa and it’s ridiculous that he looks so much like their father in his sloppy Muggle clothing and golden earrings and his long hair in a braid because that is apparently the most comfortable way to get it under a motorcycle helmet. He hasn’t even come to Father’s funeral last year or if he did, Regulus didn’t see him.

He feels like he should strike up a conversation but he has no idea how, since they haven’t had a normal human interaction in years. Throwing hexes and cold looks at one another in school corridors can’t count.

“Have you ever watched telly before?” Sirius asks, not looking at him directly, but rather somewhere to the left.

“No, not really.”

“See, this is what all those barmy old-fashioned Purebloods really miss out on.” Sirius slides down from the sofa to the ‘telly’ box and presses a button. “I’ll show you, so that you don’t embarrass us around normal people.”

In the morning, Sirius goes to work and Regulus stays behind with Lupin to do research, but despite a delivery of historic texts from Dumbledore they make little progress towards finding out how to destroy Voldemort’s cursed artefacts. It’s probably not a coincidence that Regulus has learned the most from the library at home, the one place that neither of them can currently access. He pitches the idea anyway, so that they cannot accuse him of holding anything back, but Lupin shakes his head and Sirius throws a fit about how there certainly are Death Eaters waiting on the porch for him to come back.

The thing is, he does not know if there are, and it’s difficult to withstand, this state of forced suspension and benightedness. Does everyone he used to know think he’s dead? Is the Dark Lord ripping up their London headquarters looking for him? Is Mother sobbing into his sheets convinced that he is dead? And is Kreacher’s loyalty to him unwavering enough not to tell her Regulus is very much alive, just slumming it with Sirius’ half-blood boyfriend in Kentish Town? All questions without answers and sufficiently nerve-wracking to deprive him of sleep in the middle of the night, on Lupin’s lumpy mattress, the lights of Muggle vehicles moving about on the ceiling.

The awkwardness between Lupin and him fades a little with every day they spend cooped up together in the flat, but then one evening he stumbles into Lupin on his way to the bathroom, and discovers the following: Lupin is flushed, sweaty and haphazardly wrapped in a sheet, and the door behind him is left ajar, providing a direct line of sight to Sirius lounging undressed on the bed, his privates mercifully covered with the duvet. They must have been having sex on the other side of the wall, most probably behind a silencing charm, and Regulus would have remained blissfully unaware of that fact if he hadn’t drunk so much of that sweet fizzy drink Sirius brought from the supermarket.

Lupin flushes an even deeper red and takes a step back, almost getting caught up in his sheet.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t--”

“Pardon me,” Regulus blurts out and they proceed to apologise to one another profusely in the hallway before Lupin bolts to the bathroom and Regulus flees to his bedroom.

He flops down onto the mattress and scratches at his forearm. This is horrible on many levels, but mostly because it has unearthed some facts and feelings that Regulus has worked very hard to keep out of sight; things that he can’t allow to come to light when he’s dealing with betraying the Dark Lord, leaving home, reacquainting himself with Sirius. And Lupin--fuck--he could not even exactly be called handsome, he’s rather homely, with a too large nose and ears. But there’s something arresting about him at the same time, perhaps his height, because he’s really tall, lanky, too, in that masculine sort of way, with long, slender hands and feet. There are scars across his shoulders and nose and he has freckles and the kindest smile and sometimes, just sometimes, a commanding voice with the slightest edge of threat in it. And he’s Sirius’.

He turns his face into his pillow like he’s fifteen and trying to ignore his disquieting feelings for broodingly handsome Evan Rosier again, curled up in his bed in the boys’ dormitory, ready to abjure anything bent with all of his might, because it had terrifying implications for his future and his social standing. It no longer does--his future is in shambles, if there even is one, and he’s fairly sure that the white hats are a more accepting lot than Malfoy and his ilk--but it can’t go anywhere, anyway, and it’s not like he can share it anymore than he could before.

It is all so inevitably and thoroughly fucked, rounding out so perfectly and ironically the amount of shite he’s already in to the neck, that he doesn’t notice the obvious.

The next day begins with an argument at the breakfast table. Lupin and Sirius have been invited to a party at Potter’s that is most probably a celebration of the headway they’ve been gaining thanks to Regulus’ intelligence, but nobody’s telling him anything, so there’s no way to confirm that. Anyway, they obviously can’t come together, which is going to be deemed suspicious, plus Sirius wants to tell Potter and Lupin thinks it unwise. Regulus agrees with him, because the fewer people know about him, the better in the grand scheme of things, but he keeps it to himself.

“The Prongses and Peter already think it’s odd that they can’t come over anymore,” Sirius says. “They think we’re arguing or, I don’t know, that we’ve stopped cleaning and it’s a goddamn hovel that we can’t invite anyone to. It’s really beginning to look suspicious to everyone.”

“Sirius, we’ve promised to the old man to keep this to ourselves, and you understand why.”

“Sure, but I’m just saying that James will find out sooner or later anyway, so why not tell him now? In, like, controlled circumstances? What am I supposed to say when you don’t show up again, anyway?”

“That I’m not feeling well, which is not unheard of,” Lupin says. Regulus perks up his ears. Do his friends know about the lycanthropy? “They will understand.”

“I don’t think I can keep it in any longer, Moony,” Sirius whines. “I’ve always told Prongs everything and this is so _huge_ \--”

“His life is at stake.” Lupin calmly points to Regulus who is chewing his toast thoughtfully. “Do you really want to risk it just because you can’t keep from flapping your fucking mouth to James?”

Sirius huffs angrily, but shuts up. Regulus is silently amazed at Lupin’s proficiency in bringing Sirius to heel, something their stern, authoritative parents managed to completely fail at throughout the fifteen years they had with Sirius.

“Tell them I’ve got stomach flu,” Lupin continues, buttering his toast. “I’ll write to Lily so that she doesn’t worry that you’ve run me off back to Wales or something. Maybe I could pop in and see them on Sunday.”

“Yeah, that could work,” Sirius says, petulant. “Anyway, I’ve got to get going. I have to figure out how to approach Burkes without him calling his bodyguards at the mere sight of my charming face, thanks to you two pillocks scaring him senseless after that auction a few weeks ago.”

Regulus feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and when he steals a glance at Lupin he’s smiling wryly too. Their eyes meet for a golden second, then Sirius scrapes his chair across the floor, getting up from the table.

“See ya later, arseholes.” He leans down and kisses Lupin on the crown of his head, but his eyes are trained on Regulus, as if to see if he’s looking. He is, and he doesn’t back down from that gaze even as a frisson of fear runs down his back: _sweet Circe, what if he knows_.

Sirius takes his helmet off the hook and there’s a _whoosh_ of the wards being lowered for his exit. Lupin is calmly finishing his breakfast. Regulus feels strange, untethered, slightly faint. He rubs at his forearm through the material of his new itchy shirt.

“Are you missing your friends?” he asks, breaking the silence.

“Yes, well, I used to come over often.” Lupin rubs his forehead tiredly. “Sirius is right that this is going to provoke questions.”

“I can lock myself in the spare bedroom,” Regulus suggests, brow arched. “Gryffindor parties are not very high on the list of things I’d like to do before I die.”

Lupin snorts.

“You don’t know our friends. It’s impossible to keep anything from them. James would sniff you right out.”

Regulus resists a frown at another mention of Potter, the eponymous Gryffindor: big-headed, conceited, nauseatingly noble now that the days of ridiculous pranking are behind him. Regulus had always slightly resented him and the feeling only grew when he found out the Potters took Sirius in and James started filling in as Sirius’ brother, despite the fact that Sirius had already had a perfectly good brother he abandoned.

They’re adults now, and Regulus has switched sides, but it still hurts.

Sirius doesn’t come home at all during the day. They work on a particularly complex text in Vulgar Latin that resists most attempts at an understandable modern translation, but which looks promising enough to warrant dedicating this much time, and in the afternoon Lupin cooks them some lackluster pasta for dinner. It’s all rather pleasant, sitting in the kitchen with his notes while someone is at the stove, smells wafting over the whole room, the wireless playing in the background. The kitchen at home was his favourite place in the house, but it wasn’t appropriate for a young Master to spend time down there at home. He only sneaked in sometimes and the elves always had the best snacks for him.

After dinner, Lupin goes out to the dustbins and Regulus throws the window open and sits on the windowsill to smoke. The kitchen looks out onto the backyard of the building and he has an overview of the whole unimpressive space: the entrances to the other wings of the block, the gate leading in from the road, the heap of garbage to the right of the gate, the lone, sad, twisted plum tree in the middle, and finally the dustbins themselves, more often than not overflowing with refuse.

He hears Lupin’s measured footfalls on the stairs, then the doors to the yard slam shut. Anytime now, he will see Lupin’s tousled head of curls emerge below, but something catches his eye first: movement behind the garbage heap. He leans forward, cigarette dangling from his mouth, and sure enough, there is someone crouching behind a defunct refrigerator. As they move a fraction, light glints off a silvery mask.

The cigarette falls out of his mouth and to the backyard, where Lupin is currently carrying bags of rubbish to the bins, oblivious of the impending ambush.

“Oh fuck, oh no no no--” He scrabbles off the windowsill and grabs for his wand, which is on the kitchen table, because he can light cigarettes with his fingers, right, which is really daft, he should never part with his fucking wand, ever, as this situation clearly proves. He’s grabbing it from the table when he hears a spell go off outside and for a fraction of a second he considers their crucial research--and Lupin getting attacked outside--and flies back to the window, leaving their notes scattered on the kitchen table.

There are scraps of paper and parchment floating in the yard, obscuring the view somewhat, but he can see figures in dark robes, rubbish scattered everywhere, a flash of yellow--Lupin’s jumper--disappearing behind the bins. That’s enough. He dashes into the hall and is pushing down on the handle of the door as he remembers the fucking wards. Lupin put them back up, leaving, and they allow for Regulus’ presence inside, but he doesn’t know the key to them, not exactly.

 _Think, Reggie, think_. He’s watched Sirius and Lupin leave several times, they performed the routine. He could probably recall it if he focuses, but it is somewhat difficult to concentrate with the crashes outside and his throat parched and hands shaking with fear. He has no doubt they’re here for him and Lupin is just collateral damage--

He tries the wards. They’re intricate, evidently Lupin’s craft. He knows Lupin, now. The wards know him, too, so he twists his wand up and in a flourish, then forward and back, flourish again, the way he’s seen Sirius do, and they come down.

He throws the door open and bounds down the stairs in sock feet. It’s a stop at the door to the backyard, his back to the wall, breath quick and shallow. With a tap of his wand, he Disillusions himself and shoulders the doors open, coming in at an angle. There’s a dark figure in front of him--the look out.

 _Petrificus_ , the masked man is down, Regulus’ shield is up, hexes coming from somewhere in front of him. There’s a piercing scream from behind the bins. He veers left, off the course of a fire curse, and ducks down behind a box.

“There he is!” yells a shrill voice. “The traitor! Take him!”

 _Fuck_. He glances left and right. There’s not much cover, and they will want to take him alive, so he needs to counterattack, now. Shield up, he vaults over the box and makes a run at his opponent, who strikes out with a silver light. Regulus inverts his shield mid-run and the _Stupefy_ rebounds, hits the attacker in the chest.

He falls down with a satisfying thud and Regulus dashes behind the plum tree. One breath, two. Nobody seems to be coming for him, not right now. But there are voices ringing out from behind the bins.

“That’s enough, darling. We’re not here for him--”

Regulus pushes himself off the trunk, steps into that corner. Lupin is curled on the ground, his yellow jumper dark with blood. Two cloaked and masked figures are standing over his body, wands out--wands up, at his entrance.

“Leave him,” he says, surprised at the steely quality of his own voice. “You’re here for me.”

“Darling boy,” one of them drawls, and, of course, it’s Bellatrix. He’s so high-strung he barely refrains from rolling his eyes. “So we are. Reggie boy, wretched traitor, biting at the hand that--”

The other figure raises their wand, and Regulus doesn’t wait for the hex and Disillusions himself again.

“Then come and get me.”

He steps back and darts into the darkness. There are curses and jinxes thrown in his wake, and something hits him in the back like a fiery fist. He goes tumbling, pain exploding in his shoulder blade, but he’s free to move, he’s not bound, so he rolls to the side and stumbles behind the garbage heap.

“Oi!” Someone yells from up above. “Bloody hell! Keep it quiet down there or we’re calling the police!”

One of the Death Eaters responds with a curse that shatters the windows on one of the higher floors. The Muggle shouts in pain and surprise as glass comes down like crystal rain. Regulus clenches his jaw and scampers to the side, hunched over with pain, taking advantage of the distraction. Lights in the building are now flickering from all the magic they’ve been throwing at each other and in the flashes he can see two figures creeping by the plum tree, a smaller and a bigger one, silver masks gleaming. Cold twists in his gut, but he’s been keeping something up his sleeve for when they come for him, an old and forbidden curse he expected to use to go out in a blaze of glory: something special for his lovely cousin Bellatrix.

He collects all his pain and terror and anger and thrusts his wand arm forward. A ball of fire comes flying out and strikes the tree, igniting everything in the vicinity with red flame.

Regulus flings himself behind the bins, grabs Lupin by the leg and Disapparates.

They land in his safe point in Thamesmead, by the river. Lupin straightens and attempts to crawl away from him, so he grabs him by the shoulders and Disapparates again, to throw the pursuit off. The next stop is a hill near Sevenoaks. Lupin curls up in on himself and throws up, but they need to go again, at least twice, so Regulus wraps his arms around him and aims for Osey Island. In the inky darkness he can only see the light of a single ship on the river. Lupin shivers violently in his arms. Regulus recalls how he doesn’t handle Apparition too well, but four stops is the rule if they don’t want to be traced, so he gathers his strength and makes for the final point in Kent Downs.

It’s a rough landing in the wet grass, Regulus sprawled out on his back, Lupin on his side and heaving. Regulus struggles to his knees and casts a protective charm around them for good measure, then lights his wand and leans over Lupin.

He doesn’t look well. Quite the contrary: he’s deathly pale and shaking and covered in blood, altogether too much blood. Regulus moves as if to check him for wounds but stops in his tracks--what if he hurts him further? He’s always been pants at healing and could barely get rid of a scrape on his arm or cheek, and this seems like a serious injury.

Remus’ teeth start chattering. Are werewolves supposed to heal faster than humans? Regulus can’t recall anything from that Defense Against the Dark Arts class, he’s just kneeling over Remus, useless and panicking now that the gravity of the situation has finally sunk in.

Lupin’s eyes are suddenly open and trained on his. His cold hand grasps Regulus’.

“A Patronus messenger,” Lupin forces out. “Send one to Sirius. Quick.”

That’s even worse than healing spells. In his whole life, Regulus hasn’t managed more than a sad wisp of a Patronus, let alone a corporeal one to serve as a messenger. He does recall Sirius telling him to use that in an emergency, along with a host of other commandments, and he either ignored it or didn’t treat it seriously, which amounts to the same thing: he has no idea how to do it.

Lupin coughs wetly and he bends over him, hands sliding across his torso. There’s an especially wet patch by the left pit and the light from Regulus’ wand illuminates a deep, long cut, slicing through the jumper, the vest and the skin down to something white and gleaming.

He’s looking at Remus’ ribs.

Regulus tears off his blazer and presses it to the wound with one hand, hurriedly casts a warming charm with the other. Lupin’s teeth stop chattering, but now that the extent of his injuries have become clear he feels more than just an urgency to find help--it’s a powerful drive, an impetus to act that comes from deep within where his sense of justice and will to survive reside. He wants to live, desperately; it’s an intense lust for life, like in that Muggle song Sirius likes, a craving for things he’s only had a small sample of in the last few weeks, coupled with the tantalizing realization there is so much more. Somehow, that also extends to Remus by virtue of Regulus’ gratitude or crush, hard to say, but it spreads nonetheless, and fills him with a cold, thrilling resolve.

It’s like he’s sinking again in the freezing water in the cave, all alone, and then Sirius is coming for him and pushing him upwards, Regulus’ head breaking water. There’s Lupin leaning over the surface, hand extended to grasp his, wand spitting fire to drive the dead things away. They haul him out and he’s wet and sputtering and gulping down air like a newborn. Surprised to be alive.

He points his wand into the night and it spits out a brilliant twirling light.


	2. Chapter 2

Lily puts on the Electric Light Orchestra, so Sirius decides it’s a good moment to have a smoke and migrates to the kitchen. There’s an alternative party going on there already and he half-expects to see Remus seated on the counter next to the fridge, sharing his views on Ministry politics or the new David Bowie album, but this time it’s just boring Dearborn with a bottle of beer in one meaty hand. Sirius snuffles and lights a cigarette next to the window letting in cold October air.

“Padfoot, my lad.” James slings an arm around his shoulders. “You’ve been oddly quiet today.”

“There’s a lot on my mind,” Sirius says and at James’ inquisitive look he adds: “The old man has me doing some really obscure research in and outside of work. I’m running ragged, mate.”

James’ thick eyebrows furrow suspiciously. Sirius groans.

“Are you and Moony on the outs or something?” he asks in a low voice, but Sirius is fairly sure nobody is listening anyway; they’re too invested in their discussion about the merits of the new Nimbus racing broom.

“What?” Sirius scoffs. “No. Why do you always assume we’re having problems?”

“You two had that awful row about a month ago or so--”

“That’s over and done for, Prongs. I apologised, it’s all good.”

“What was it about anyway? If I may ask, of course.”

“Sure, mate, you sure can. It was about it not being your bloody business.”

“Why are you being so cagey? What is going on with Moony anyway?”

“I told you, he caught that stomach bug that’s been going around. He’s in bed, bravely pretending not to be sick like he always does.”

James looks at him closely and clicks his tongue.

“It all seemingly makes sense, but--” he waves his hand in a flourish in front of Sirius’ face. “--I know you well enough to notice that this is a bloody lying mug.”

“I can’t tell you, mate. Not yet. Believe me, it pains me too. It’s like a physical pain in my--”

“Oh hell, so there is a secret!” James exclaims and heads turn their way.

“Shh!” Sirius claps a hand over James’ mouth and sweaty cheeks. “Keep quiet. I’m not joking. Moony’ll have my balls if I let anything slip.”

He wipes his palm on James’ trousers, but James is so invested in the idea of the secret he doesn’t even notice, eyes huge behind his glasses. Sirius blinks and realises there must be more going on, because everybody has suddenly fallen silent, so he follows James’ gaze to the living room. It’s full of people frozen in the middle of dancing or gesturing wildly, their poses ridiculous as they stare at a Patronus messenger--a dog, medium-sized, graceful and slender--making its way to Sirius. _It’s an English pointer dog_ , Sirius thinks in that weird detached way he usually does when his brain is trying to process something difficult to digest.

The silvery, glowing dog stops in the middle of the kitchen and opens its muzzle for Regulus’ voice to float out of it.

“We’ve been attacked.” His voice is shaking. “Remus is badly hurt. Bellatrix was at the flat and I--we’ve gotten away. We’re outside of London now, trace the Patronus for coordinates.”

Sirius sticks out his wand reflexively, gathering the trace for Apparition, as James freaks out next to him.

“Why the fuck is your brother’s voice coming out of that thing? What the--”

“We’ve got to go,” Sirius barks at him. “I’ll side-along you.”

He pushes through the confounded crowd into the hall, James hot at his heels.

“What’s this about Moony being hurt--”

“Tell Lily to meet us at St Mungo’s.” He grabs his jacket off the hook and pounds at the bathroom door. “Pete, this is an emergency! Get your arse out of there and take the Floo with Lily to St Mungo’s!”

“What the hell, Sirius, a bloke needs privacy--”

“St Mungo’s in five minutes, Wormtail! Come on,” he says to James who is attempting to put on his shoes and his coat both at the same time. “We’ve got to go now, why the hell is this taking so much time--”

“I’m going,” James pants, waving away concerned guests. “Fuck! Will you tell me what is going on?”

“It’s a long story.” Sirius dashes out of the house, cursing the no-apparition zone around it internally. “Come on now, I can’t believe you used to be a bloody Seeker!”

“Merlin’s balls,” James mumbles, almost slipping in his untied shoes. “Can’t believe this either--”

Sirius taps his foot waiting for James to stumble to him outside of the zone, then grabs him by the forearm and Apparates to the coordinates received from the Patronus.

“Sirius--” James breathes behind him. “That really is your--what is your brother doing here?”

He takes in the whole scene: Regulus in his shirtsleeves, pale and terrified, kneeling over a prone figure on the ground, the blood reflecting wand light, the dark hills in the background. He grips his wand tightly and marches up to them, drops to his knees on the opposite side of Regulus. Remus is pale and limp. Sirius’ guts twist, but he can’t lose his head just right now, he just can’t.

“He’s lost consciousness,” Regulus babbles. “I’ve Enervated him once, but I don’t want to do it again, he’s too weak, I think. Bellatrix hit him with some kind of slashing spell--and I think there was a Cruciatus involved--I don’t know--I couldn’t get to him immediately and had to fight the rest--”

“That is okay,” James says, slipping into his Auror training and gently pushing Regulus out of the way. “You did what you could. It’s good you called us. Sirius, we need to stabilize him and get him to St Mungo’s stat. There’s no telling how much blood he’s lost already.”

He moves his wand alongside Remus’ body, whispering charms. There’s no visible change, not in his face, anyway, which is still deathly pale and completely blank. Sirius tries to swallow the lump in his throat, but it’s too big and he chokes on it slightly. No, fuck, he needs to keep it together.

“Okay, let’s go,” James says, stepping back from Remus. “We--”

“We’ll take him,” Sirius says, sitting back on his haunches. He slips one arm under Remus’ neck and the other under his knees, then lifts. Moony has never been this light in his arms, which is terrifying in its own right. “Reg and I. You go back to our place and secure it. There’s research that you need to take from there. It’s important,” he adds on reflex, but at the moment he can’t even remember what the relevance of it is. “Be careful. Take Frank with you.”

“I’ll alarm the department.” James turns to Regulus who looks shell-shocked, nearly as white as Remus. “Were there any Muggles involved in the incident? Any casualties?”

“Yes, I mean, there was a Muggle attacked.” Regulus is shell-shocked. “At least one. But think he’s alive. I fireballed the place before leaving so there might be a fire.”

“Okay, go.” James claps him on the shoulder, then touches Sirius’ back. “I’ll take care of everything, you go straight to the hospital.”

Sirius nods and Disapparates. He pops into the arrival lounge at St. Mungo’s, Remus’ head lolling against his shoulder. Regulus appears at his side within a second. The room is full of people that gasp and gape at them and one elderly witch actually swoons. Sirius surveys them indifferently, searching for staff, but there’s none in sight.

“Reg--” he starts but Regulus is on the move already, opening the door to the hall to let Sirius with Remus’ limp body in his arms, and he still bumps Remus’ feet against the threshold. “Sorry, I’m so sorry, Moony.”

“Excuse me,” Regulus is chasing down a hurried Mediwitch up ahead. “Excuse me--we need help, our friend is grievously wounded--”

“Just wait in the lounge, please,” she says, raising her hand to keep him at a distance. “We’ll be by in a second.”

“No.” Regulus overtakes her and turns on his heel, forcing her to stop in her tracks. “This is very serious, we can’t wait, he’ll _die_!”

She looks over her shoulder at Sirius and Remus, dripping blood onto the hall floor, and her eyes widen.

“Sweet Merlin. Come with me.” She throws open one of the doors in the hall. There are several beds there, separated by screens and seemingly occupied. There’s an odd, burnt smell in the air. “Lay him down. I’ll go fetch a healer. There’s been a potion accident in Diagon Alley and we’re overloaded with patients, so everyone is busy, but someone will be here in a minute.”

Sirius is setting Remus down on one of the beds when she moves for the door, so he doesn’t even get a chance to tell her anything. His arms and back hurt from the strain of carrying a full-grown man and his hands visibly shake so he balls them into fists. Regulus is fidgeting next to him, shirt streaked with blood and mud, a sizeable hole on the back where a spell must have burnt through the thin fabric. He looks up at Sirius with a haunted look on his face and turns immediately when a Healer enters the room.

“What has happened here?” she asks impatiently, wand already in hand, flicking around to check Remus’ vitals.

“Death Eater attack,” Regulus supplies when Sirius fails to utter a word. “Unforgivables have been used. _Crucio_ , I think. And he was slashed with a curse--”

The Healer taps her wand against Remus’ forearm and something mars her features briefly. Sirius recalls suddenly that there was something he was supposed to remember about going to St Mungo’s with Remus but it must have slipped his mind--

“Unfortunately, you will have to wait,” the Healer says, stepping back from the bed. “This young man is a werewolf and as such is required to wait for care to be administered to regular patients first.”

“What--” Sirius scoffs, grinning on a reflex, but there’s a dim ringing in his ears gaining speed and volume. “What are you saying?”

“That according to new regulations werewolves are to be provided care after other patients, and we are filled to the brim with the victims--”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Sirius snaps. “He’s lost a lot of blood and he needs help immediately! What the fuck are you saying--”

“I can stabilize him, but you will have to wait for your turn. I would also advise you to calm down or we will have to remove you from the premises.”

She moves back to Remus’ bed, wand flicking and tapping against Remus’ chest in seemingly random movements while Sirius comes to a boil.

“This is a bloody outrage--” he spits at the Healer who looks ready to leave.

“This is the policy we’re operating under. Now if you’ll let me return to other patients who need my help--”

“I do not think that is advised,” Regulus pipes in suddenly. He’s standing straight, chin up, voice steady and icy. “Do you realise that I am the head of the Ancient and Noble House of Black and as such I am directly responsible for the sizeable donation from our coffers to this fine institution?”

The Healer is staring right at him, uncomprehending. Regulus presents his right hand, right there in her face, and wiggles his fingers.

“This is the family signet ring, if you’d like to take a closer look. I apologise for the state of my dress, but I have come directly from the site of this dreadful attack on my friend, and I require your immediate assistance.”

“The policy--” the Healer says stubbornly, but Regulus hushes her with a raised palm.

“I hate reverting to such direct threats, but would you like to be the person responsible for losing that donation and stepping on the toes of my family and me? Because I do not expect you would. I really don’t.”

The Healer shakes her head with a frown, looking at the patients peeking from behind the screens in confused and terrified silence, then at Sirius, who is twitching with rage, then back at Regulus and his calmly dignified expression.

“That is blackmail and I can assure you it will have consequences,” she says, voice strained.

“I don’t care. Just heal him.”

She sets to work on Remus, her wand flying over his torso and face. In a minute or so, the Mediwitch pops back into the room and the Healer barks at her to go get potions. Sirius relaxes his fists slowly, blinking away the red he is seeing, and glances at Regulus whose eyes are huge and mouth hanging open, as if he’s surprised that this worked or maybe terrified of the consequences of throwing his name around.

The doors behind them fly open, admitting a wind-blown Lily and sweaty Peter.

“There you are! We were looking all over for you--” Lily exclaims, then her eyes land on Regulus, grow huge, and she whips out her wand, all in the span of about half a second. “--what the hell is he doing here, Sirius?!”

The Healer turns back to them with a murderous expression on her face.

“I will tolerate no more threats and commotion in this room! Take it outside immediately!”

They huddle in the corridor and while Peter’s flushed face is a familiar sight in the clandestine huddle, Lily’s or Regulus’ definitely aren’t.

“So he’s the source of all this new information coming in,” Peter guesses.

“Yes, and more,” Sirius breathes. “I can’t tell you too much here, but he’s defected to our side and brought us something immensely valuable and--I’m assuming this attack was about that?”

Regulus nods, glancing at Lily suspiciously, but her wand has disappeared from sight.

“Yes, I think they’ve come for me specifically and Remus--he was just collateral to them.” He swallows and averts his eyes. “I’m actually lucky that Bellatrix gave in to the temptation to do a little torture rather than just _Imperio_ him and march right into the flat.”

“Excuse me, what--” Lily scoffs as Sirius trembles with anger at the mention of Bellatrix and torture and Remus in one sentence. “I will need more context than that, I’m afraid. Who came and attacked whom, and when, and is Remus okay?”

Regulus recounts the attack to them, falteringly at times, but he does not skip anything that might tarnish his person, as much as Sirius can judge at least. He begrudgingly can’t help but be impressed at how Regulus handled a Death Eater party like that, especially that he was fighting his own. Or former own, in this case.

He glances at the door to the room every few seconds but while the mediwitch has come in, arms full of potions and other supplies, the healer hasn’t exited yet.

“There’s one thing I don’t get,” he says when Lily has stopped grilling Regulus on the details. “How come they knew our address? They weren’t supposed to be able to track you down like that.”

“I have no idea.” Regulus, shakes his head, anguished. “And Bellatrix, no less. This was no reconnaissance, this was supposed to be a direct hit.”

“What about the Mark?” Peter whispers, glancing at Regulus’ left arm. “Isn’t it supposed to be like a means of communication with You-Know-Who?”

“It’s just one-way.” Regulus shrugs. “And I’ve burnt mine off.”

“You’ve burnt the Dark Mark off?” Lily frowns. “If you don’t mind showing that to me--”

“I don’t mind,” Regulus says in that stiff tone of voice that suggests that mind he definitely does, but he unbuttons and rolls up the cuff of his dirty shirt, exposing his forearm. Sirius blanches at the sight of the burnt, bloody ruin in place of that damned tattoo, but then the door creaks and the Healer is out, so he leaves the huddle to jog up to her.

“How is he?”

“He’s stable,” the Healer says, still clearly annoyed with the treatment she received from Regulus. “Resting for the moment. We’ll be dosing him with the Blood Replenishing Potion through the night. We have managed to close the wound and it should not reopen. As for the consequences of the Unforgivables, I cannot say for the moment, since it depends on the willpower of the victim and--”

“So he’s going to be okay?”

“As far as I can say now, yes, he is. We’ll send in a Mindhealer tomorrow--”

Sirius isn’t listening to her anymore, because he’s on his way into the room where Remus is lying not dead, not irrevocably hurt and hopefully maybe even not unconscious. He’s not right about the last count, as Remus’ eyes are still closed, but he seems to be in a deep sleep rather than comatose like before and he’s even regained some colour in his cheeks.

“I’m here, Moony.” He kneels by the bed and strokes Remus’ hair away from his forehead. There are things inside of him that mill and eddy, powerful, terrible things, but he can’t let them out just like that, with the Mediwitch gathering the bloodied tatters of Remus’ jumper on the other side of the bed, with other people around. “I’m here with you. And you’re pulling through, like you always do.”

The Mediwitch shoots him a sympathetic glance as she bags empty potion flasks.

“We will be moving him to another room soon, but feel free to stay until then. I will also need to take his personal details to properly admit him to the hospital. Are you able to provide that?”

“Yes, I am, of course. Thank you.”

There door creaks as she leaves and immediately a dark, disheveled head pops in.

“I need to talk to you, Pads, it’s urgent.”

“Come on in then, just be quiet. He’s resting.”

James slips inside and crouches next to Sirius.

“I heard he’s going to be all right,” he whispers.

“Yeah, it seems so.”

“Oh Merlin, that’s such a relief.” He deflates a bit, eyes focused on Remus’ unmoving form in the bed. “But this is such a clusterfuck otherwise. Sirius, the Aurors are coming, and they’ll want to question all of us. Your brother can’t be here for that.”

“They’ll take him in.”

“Pretty much, yeah. So I’m sending him away with Lils and Peter to a safehouse, and we’ll be giving the statements. But we need to get our stories straight.”

“Okay, so what can’t I say?”

“That you had any inkling he might be, you know. Sporting that tattoo. That’s collusion and harboring a criminal. Plus that research stuff. I suppose we have to leave that out.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Tell them that he Disapparated a few minutes ago and you have no idea where. Does the old man know about this?”

“Of course. He’s in charge of the whole operation. I mean, he probably doesn’t know about the latest yet--”

“Leave him out of it when talking to the MLE.”

“Okay, yeah. Have you been to our place?”

“Yeah.” James pulls a face. “It was a mess. Your wards haven’t been broken, fortunately, so I took all that stuff you had lying around away. But the yard, mate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that. Your brother pretty much blasted it to bits. The Muggle fallout is huge--three injured, a whole bloody building to Obliviate. People are going to be working all night at this.”

“I can’t believe I left them alone this evening,” Sirius grits out, leaning his forehead against his palm, elbow propped on the railing of the bed.

“You couldn’t have foreseen that,” James says softly. “But, well, I don’t think you can go back there. Not after this. I’ll try to move your stuff out of there as soon as possible, but it might take some time. Let’s rendezvous at safehouse 3.” The mouths the word _three_ soundlessly and shows him three fingers. “Got it?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Prongs.”

“No worries, mate.” James claps him on the back and retreats. Sirius is left with Remus and the rest of the room, silent for the occasional moan or rustle. He lifts his head to peer at Remus’ profile, his big, somewhat crooked nose, his chin with the little dip in it, the scarring on his stubbly cheek. The fog of anger has mostly dissipated and what he’s currently feeling is terror at the notion of losing Remus, back tenfold now that he realises just how close he’s come to that precipice. If Regulus was any tardier getting the wards down, or fighting the assailants, or getting them both out of there--it could have all had ended differently, probably with Sirius flinging himself onto Moony’s dead body according to a time-honored Black tradition. Try as he might he can’t imagine going on without Moony; getting up without Moony, getting his meals without Moony, full moons without Moony, an empty flat, an empty bed. He would die alone, undoubtedly, because how could he ever meet anyone who would even compare to Moony, anyone who would have him with what he is, who he is. His imagination supplies images of dingy pubs, empty bottles, watching the sunrise from above a tumbler of whisky. Oh, yeah, he would drink himself to death, no doubt about it.

He gently picks up Remus’ left hand and kisses his scabbed-over knuckles, then lays it back down on the sheet as he hears the door open. It’s the Mediwitch; if she notices his red-rimmed eyes, she doesn’t comment on it, mercifully. She takes down Remus’ and Sirius’ information, glancing at Remus’ bed upon the mention of _lycanthropy_ and at Sirius when he says they’re _flatmates_. He wonders if people ever put it together, his last name, Remus’ condition, his disinheritance, his Muggle clothes. If they think it’s obvious or tragic or melodramatic or what not.

It’s an odd thought to have on the evening when Remus and Regulus have almost been killed and they’ve all lost the roof over their heads, but it springs up nonetheless and bothers him even more when the Aurors start questioning him. The only thing holding him back from a full-blown outburst are the manners that have been drilled into him at home and that make a startling reappearance now of all times, but it’s good that they do, because he can’t land in even more trouble with the MLE now that Remus is in the hospital and Regulus has made both his rising from the dead and his new allegiance known quasi-publically. It will be in Prophet in days, Sirius is certain of that, _the current Black heir seen pulling strings in St Mungo’s to treat werewolf friend_. The old crone might learn about Regulus’ gambit from a headline. Or from a friendly visit from Bellatrix, boasting to have almost killed Sirius’ Mudblood lover.

When they realise they are not going to get anything more out of Sirius, they leave, but he can tell they’re not satisfied. The mediwitch comes in a few minutes later to tell him Remus has been moved to the Spell Damage ward and to conjure a glass of water for him because according to her he looks parched. And he is, actually; he hasn’t had anything to drink since about five hours ago when he’d finished that beer at Prongs’ and went to have his smoke in the kitchen, just before the Patronus arrived.

Remus is alone in a small room at the end of a dark corridor, whether due to his lycanthropy or thanks to Reg’s impressive blackmail, it’s unclear. He’s been dressed in hospital pyjamas and his salvaged clothes, Scourgified, are in a paper bag by the bed. Sirius certainly won’t be missing that horrible yellow jumper.

He pulls up a chair and sits down next to the bed, determined to wait until Remus wakes up, but he must have dozed off because the next thing he sees is Lily creeping into the room.

“What time is it?” He rubs his eyes with his thumbs. His eyelids are rubbery and irritable.

“Six in the morning.” Lily leans over Remus soundlessly, as if approaching a sleeping baby, and strokes his shoulder gently. “I wanted to see how you two were doing.”

“Uh. He hasn’t woken up yet. As far as I know. Who’s with Regulus?”

“James and Peter. Your brother is sleeping, he was exhausted.” Lily straightens and meets his eyes meaningfully. “We eventually realised they had tracked him through the Dark Mark. It’s like a--like there was a hook embedded in what was left of the tattoo and they somehow clipped a tracking spell onto it. I’ve got no idea how.”

“Aren’t they going to be able to track him again?”

“No, I don’t think so. We’ve, um, removed most of it and made the rest unplottable. It’s not a nice sight, though, I have to warn you.”

“He told me he’d made it harmless.”

“Well, it’s not an exact science, to be honest. He did a good job of it, as it was.” Lily gazes down at him, arms akimbo. “Sirius, it must have hurt like hell to burn it out like that.”

Remus’ leg twitches under the sheet and they both turn to look, but it doesn’t happen again. His chest rises and falls in deep, calm breaths.

Sirius sighs. He doesn’t want to say he’s not sympathizing with his brother, because it’s not true. He is, to a certain extent. He does believe, however, that Regulus deserved at least a bit of what he’s going through, if anything because Moony is now in a hospital bed because of him. If that makes Sirius horrible or selfish or heartless, so be it.

“You do know what my thoughts on Pureblood culture are,” Lily says in that tone of voice that suggests she’s been Doing Some Thinking.

Sirius nods. “You have made that clear over the course of our acquaintance, yeah.”

“But in all that time I’ve never quite realised what it really means to walk away from it.” She moves to stand beside Sirius, arms crossed on her chest. “I mean--it’s not only losing access to the wealth and privileges that come with it, or getting cut off from your family, as horrible as that is. But it’s more, isn’t it? It’s your future, too, your acquaintances, your romantic prospects, your whole stature in society. You switch that for something you virtually have no idea about. Your brother can hardly tie his own shoes and is quite perplexed at the sight of a toaster, for example.”

Sirius scoffs noncommittally, a little disgruntled at how Lily’s epiphany seems to have come specifically on the heels of his brother’s departure from the Ancient and Abominable House of Black.

“What I am trying to say is that it takes guts to do something like that. A lot of guts.” She nudges him with her hip. “And I am giving this to you too, you ponce. I know you have also gone through that and I realise now it must have been rough. So just take it and say thank you.”

“Thank you, Lily,” he grumbles and, on impulse, reaches out to hug her around the middle. She lets out a surprised huff, but not the usual _keep your paws off of me, mister_ , and reciprocates with an arm around his shoulders and a hand stroking his hair. Sirius presses his face against her belly. He’s still not quite over the shock of the events of the evening and feels disoriented from his nap, but this, human warmth, Lily, grounds him.

There’s a cough from the bed and they pull apart.

“Am I at the hospital?” Remus croaks. “Why?”

“You were attacked, Moony,” Sirius slides to his knees by the bed. “But you’re going to be all right. It’s a--we--”

He’s seen Remus recovering in a hospital bed dozens of times, but this is different, and he fumbles with his words, unsure how to even start.

“How are you?” Lily steps in, circling the bed and taking Remus’ hand in both hers. “That’s really nice of you, to finally grace us with your lucid presence.”

“I’m shitty, but not the shittiest I’ve ever been.” Remus’ slightly unfocused eyes find Sirius’ face and he reaches his other hand out to him, which Sirius’ readily grasps. “What about your brother, is he--”

“He’s all right. With James and Pete. He’s had an eventful night. He’s, uh--he’s rescued you, actually.”

Lily looks at him sharply, picking up on his reluctance to admit that, but doesn’t comment on it. They summon a cup of weak tea for Remus to sip slowly over a rather disjointed recount of the events. Sirius would gladly skip the part with the Healer who declined care for Remus, because he hates how the light always goes of Remus’ eyes for a little bit when he gets that kind of treatment, and Sirius is angry with himself for being so helpless about it, but Remus asks about the new regulations directly, so they can’t really hide it.

At seven, the mediwitch comes in to take Remus’ vitals and asks Sirius and Lily to vacate the room. Sirius is hesitant to leave, eyes glued to Remus’ ashen face and withering smile. He’s not aware that he is jittering until Lily pushes down on his shoulders forcibly.

“Hey, you can calm down now. He’s all right. I know this was close--”

“This was too fucking close.”

She shrugs. “I know how it is. James is out there more and more often. I’ve bitten my thumbnails almost to the bone, look.”

“That’s just gross, Evans.” He gives her a lopsided smile. There’s something heartening in the way Lily has equated her relationship with James to Moony and him. He loves it. “Don’t you think there’s something odd about how he doesn’t seem to remember the--the attack itself?”

“I don’t think so.” She scrunches up her nose. “I’ve read that survivors of the Unforgivables, particularly the Cruciatus, often block out the memories surrounding the event. It’s just better for the mind not to remember.”

He nods and pushes the implications of that on his own memory down, deep down. The ward seems to have sprung into motion around them, with personnel bustling about and charmed trays of breakfast floating into rooms. Lily is following them with her eyes with a hungry look.

“What do you say we get something to eat, too?”

“Don’t you like have classes to go to?”

“I do, but it just doesn’t make sense for me to go to sleep anymore.” She yawns hugely. “I know a good place one street away. Let me take you out.”

“Are you a Lily Evans doppelganger? You’ve never taken me out anywhere.”

“Well, it’s not without self-interest. I’d like to know some more about your brother.”

Sirius groans.

“I hardly know him myself. You know, what with being disowned when he’s just hit puberty--”

“I’m sure you do. He’s been using these interesting Charms that you, being a Black, surely also know and just neglected telling me about--”

“Ugh, I have no idea what he’s been getting into in the meantime--”

“--and he’s also mentioned this enigmatic Black Library when we were struggling with the Mark--”

Sirius rolls his eyes and tells her. There’s really no use standing between Lily Evans Potter and knowledge, plus she’s distracting him and he’s grateful for it.

Remus is permitted to leave later in the day even though he’s still supposed to be taking Blood Replenishing and Dreamless Sleep potions. Sirius is under the impression that they are glad to see the werewolf and the entitled Pureblood go, but he bites his tongue and contents himself with shooting dirty looks at the Healers.

Once dressed in his corduroys and a nice new jumper Sirius got him at Debenhams, Remus shuffles slowly to the door, clutching his side. Sirius rushes to him, hand hovering in the air just behind Remus’ back.

“Come on. This is pathetic. Let me help.”

“Like you haven’t done enough.” Remus smiles wryly, but lets Sirius prop him up on his shoulder. “I heard you even carried me in bridal-style.”

“Yes, well. You should try it out yourself. With me, I mean. I’d gladly jump into your arms.”

Remus looks unconvinced which might have to do with Sirius being heavier by a good stone.

“We’re not going home, are we?” He asks and Sirius shakes his head. He’s already broken the lease on their flat and paid the landlord a little extra seeing as they were ultimately responsible for his backyard being destroyed. The man was still a little confused from the hefty Obliviate he was served by the MLE earlier in the day.

James is waiting for them at the pick up point, leaning casually against the wall in robes that have hastily been transfigured into a Muggle coat. The safehouse is in a terrace at the outskirts of London, and James leads them through a row of unremarkable yards and streets to the backdoor of an unassuming house, undoes three complicated wards, turns a key in the lock and lets them inside, where Remus immediately flops onto a chair.

“So this is it,” Sirius says.

“This is it,” James replies. “I’ve liberated some of your stuff from the flat when everyone left. Moony’s and yours favourite garments were easy enough to identify, but I wasn’t so sure--”

He breaks off as Regulus appears in the doorway, seemingly unaffected, but Sirius can easily spot the glimmer of anxiety in his eyes in the way he nods hello at them.

“I’m glad you’re back. Pettigrew is, unfortunately, an even less stimulating conversationalist than Potter.”

“And here I thought Sirius could be annoying,” Peter admits, coming into the kitchen after Regulus. “After today I have a new-found appreciation for you, Padfoot.”

“Better late than never. Help me haul Moony into bed?”

“No, no.” Remus slaps their hands away. “I’ll just sit here, thanks. Stop fussing around me like elderly aunts. I’m okay.”

“I’m glad to see you both in one piece.” Peter grabs his coat from the hook. “I need to get going. Let me know if you want me to babysit your bratty little brother again.”

Regulus sighs and slips into the chair next to Remus.

“What about your wounds?” Sirius asks, tapping the toe of his boot against one of the legs of Regulus’ chair. “The one on the back and the--the Mark. How are they?”

“Lily did what she could,” James remarks, busy with the tea. Before Regulus can roll up his sleeve, Peter waves goodbye and leaves with a whoosh of the wards. Sirius isn’t surprised: Wormtail has always hated gore, and the wound on his brother’s forearm is exactly that: a blackened ruin.

“That doesn’t look good,” Remus says mildly. “Does it hurt?”

“A bit.” Regulus nods. “But it should be over, now. All of it.”

There are looks being exchanged and Sirius can’t really stand it, so shakes off his jacket and goes to explore the rest of the safehouse. On the ground floor, there’s a gloomy living room stuck firmly in the fifties and a bedroom; two are located upstairs, basic but liveable. He bounds down the narrow staircase to find they’ve all moved into the living room and comes to a halt in the doorway, one hand lingering on the frame in pure incredulity that he does, indeed, see James handing his brother a David Bowie record and Remus settling on the sofa behind them, and from what they are saying apparently Lily is on the way too.

“How do you feel about this,” he asks James in the kitchen when they’re looking for beer James swears he placed there when they were setting the place up.

“‘Bout what, the safehouse or--or what?” James squints at him from behind his glasses.

“About my brother switching sides, mate.”

“I don’t know, I--I think it’s genuine, I guess? What’s motivated him, hard to say. But then I don’t know him, really, we screamed profanities at each other in the corridor that one time and played against each other in a dozen matches, but that’s virtually it. Do you have doubts about it?”

Sirius shrugs.

“Moony trusts him. I haven’t been there for the miraculous change-of-mind. It all kind of happened with Remus, actually. Reg only called me in when he was in serious trouble.”

“The cave. He mentioned.” James bends to look into the miniature pantry. “And--um--now I know where the jealous vibe is coming from.”

“What.” Sirius narrows his eyes at him. “You fucking tosser.”

“I’m just saying, you’re not the best at sharing, Padfoot, you’ve never been. Remember that time Moony got paired up with Benjy in Transfiguration--”

“I’m assuming you know what you’re starting now--”

“Ah! There it is!” James retrieves the six-pack from behind a dusty box in the pantry. “Now take it, shut up and play nice.”

Sirius bristles but does behave himself, mostly for Moony, who is looking pale and fragile in his new jumper and doesn’t want to eat but Lily makes him. The evening quickly takes a turn into reminiscing about their school years, as a means to escape thinking about the violence of the previous evening and, Sirius suspects, to prime Regulus in their Gryffindor ways, which he doesn’t take to all that well. Sirius eventually feels a pang of pity for him but is too exhausted and tipsy to really take it anywhere, but leave it to Remus to help a Slytherin in a pinch: he asks Reg about his school friends and Sirius watches him struggle between his natural snarkish standoffishness and an obvious need to fit in and be amiable to Remus. It’s captivating. Lily takes the opportunity to needle him about his Ravenclaw mates but Sirius sees it for what it is--a stand in for the running commentary in their minds, _has he done something terrible to earn that tattoo on his arm, has he done that to one of us or our friends and relatives, is he calling us blood traitors and filthy mudbloods behind that stilted smile?_

James takes the first watch and they split off to the three bedrooms. His and Remus’ is the biggest, with a window to the empty dark street, and he leaves Remus there and bounds downstairs to get the rest of their stuff. When he’s coming back up he gets a glimpse of his brother getting ready for bed and something switches in mind, as if he’s thirteen again and being sent off to bed without supper for being rude to his parents. Regulus got caught in the crossfire, sometimes, and for Sirius remorse often came too late.

He comes into their bedroom and shuts the door behind him. Remus looks up at him from where he’s sitting hunched over at the edge of the bed and flops onto his back, and in the process his vest rides up and his pants ride down, showing the tantalizing trail of brown hair under his navel.

“Did you know,” Sirius says, voice hushed, setting the bag on the nightstand, “that Regulus is--you know--like you?”

“Bent?” Remus’ lips twist. “Yes, I did suspect that.”

“Isn’t it, like, improbable? I mean, both of us not being straight?”

“I don’t think it works that way, Sirius. You are who you are. I don’t think there’s an allotment for every family that you’ve just happened to use up in one go.”

“Alphard was, too.” Sirius sits down next to him to untie his boots. “They blasted him off the tree when they discovered he left money to me and his partner. He’s a French Pureblood. Quite fit, for an older bloke.”

“You might have just as well ended up with a girl,” Remus says innocently, crawling under the covers. “Maybe not Marlene--”

“No, obviously. But see, her too! Lesbian!”

“Maybe we flock together. And you could have, hypothetically.”

“Not when I’d met you, Moony,” he says, voice pitched low, eyes hooded. Remus snorts and drags the duvet over himself.

“I’m recovering, you dog.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t do this.” He slips under the duvet and kisses Remus’ leg blindly. His lips touch a thigh dusted with soft hair. Remus kicks out, kneeing him in the ribs.

“You only want me for my body.”

“Sure I do.” Sirius trails his lips up the thigh to Remus’ hip. “Your cock, specifically.”

“Jesus Christ.” Remus’ palm lands on his forehead and pushes him away. “Padfoot.”

“What.” Sirius wriggles out from under the duvet, blowing hair out of his eyes.

“You don’t have to prove your devotion to me right now.”

“It’s just a no-strings-attached offer to suck your cock.”

Remus narrows his eyes at him. Sirius smiles and lets his lips part. Remus’ eyes zero in on them, then move lower, to his neck and clavicle, and back up, to the eyes, which Sirius makes sure look exceedingly sultry. It’s a done deal, he knows it even before Remus opens his mouth to speak.

“Yeah, okay. But if I fall asleep in the middle of it, don’t blame yourself. I’m knackered.”

Sirius earnestly doubts that anyone could ever fall asleep in the middle of a blowjob that he is performing, but he doesn’t comment on it and gets to work instead: he ties his hair back, throws the duvet to the side, gets comfortable between Moony’s long legs and slips his pants down. He’s already half-hard, clearly interested.

Before they started shagging, he’d been sure that sucking cock would be the one thing he wouldn’t like out of the assortment of homosexual acts he’d been aware of back then. It quickly turned out he had both a liking and a natural flair for it which, Remus once joked, might have to do with how big his mouth was. It was meant in the talkative and foul sense, but Sirius kind of went with it and taught himself to make it really big, and so he relaxes his throat and swallows Remus down to the root.

“Oh, fuck,” Remus hisses above, his hands threading into Sirius’ hair.

Sirius gets into this weird headspace sometimes when sucking Remus off--or fucking him in general--like he’s a priest performing sexual rites in an ancient temple, in service of giving pleasure, as if it his calling, as if there’s more to it than a simple sexual act performed in this unremarkable bed in a Muggle house in London. That’s what it feels like having Remus slide into his mouth and his throat, and tug on his hair, and bracket him with his thighs, so he applies himself to it each time, moving his whole body, stomach muscles contracting and loosening to control his breathing, shoulders flexing.

Remus comes with a groan and a sharp, painful tug on his hair. Sirius grimaces and wipes his mouth, then crawls up his body, minding the wounded side.

“Asleep yet?”

“No, not yet.” Remus, blissful, cracks one shiny eye open and tugs Sirius closer, his other hand already working at Sirius’ fly. “I need to finish something first.”

Sirius comes embarrassingly quickly and leaves to take a shower. He hopes not to meet Regulus on the way because he’s holding up his open trousers with one hand and his other is just hastily wiped, but the hallway is mercifully clear and the door to the other bedroom closed. The pipes in the ancient bathroom creak and groan, yet when he slips into bed Remus is fast asleep. Despite getting a measly three hours of sleep in a hospital chair last night, he can’t quite follow suit and just lies there wide awake, staring at the peeling ceiling. It has a hold on him, how close they came this time to a calamity, an absolute catastrophe, it’s like a freezing vice closing around his middle. Fucking Bellatrix: he will hunt her down and kill her, eventually, gloriously, taking vengeance for everything she’d done to him in her miserable life. Or she will finish him once and for all, and that will be that.

He shivers and turns onto his side to press his face to Remus’ nape. Remus stirs in his sleep, his arm blindingly grasping for Sirius, so he readily presses closer and grasps Remus’ bony hip. Bloody Bellatrix. His family as a whole, actually. Maybe it’s a good thing they won’t reproduce, Reg and he.

He eventually dozes off and is only woken up by Lily when it’s light outside.

“Oi, breakfast is ready.” She pops her head into their bedroom, eyes closed. “Is it okay to look?”

“You could just knock and we’d tell you.” Sirius disentangles himself from Remus. “Wha--why hasn’t James woken me up for my shift?”

“You slept like _a wee adorable stubbly baby_ , in his words. Besides, I couldn’t sleep, so I took over from him. Come on down, we’re about to have a visitor.”

Lily leaves and Sirius jumps out of bed and stretches luxuriously. Turning around, he finds Remus looking at him.

“How are you feeling, Moony?”

“Slightly less shitty than yesterday, thanks.” Remus rubs at his eyes. His hair is sticking up every which way. “What’s going on?”

“Drink your potions and come on.” Sirius throws a fresh pair of trousers at him.

Downstairs, it smells like freshly made toast and James is washing yesterday’s dishes by the sink. Much to Sirius’ surprise, Dumbledore is seated at the table, talking to Lily and Regulus, which means the muffled deep voice he took for the wireless must have actually belonged to him.

“Sir.” He pulls out a chair for Remus and leans against the counter himself. Dumbledore slightly unnerves him in usual circumstances, and Dumbledore visiting in person is definitely bad news.

“Good morning Sirius, Remus. I am glad to see you in good health.” Dumbledore nods graciously at Remus, who is slightly hunched over his wounded side. “I assume you have been officially discharged from the hospital.”

“Yes, I have. They weren’t particularly keen on making me stay,” Remus says with a polite smile which is offset by the slight edge in his voice. Even if Dumbledore picks up on it, he ignores it.

“I have been brought up to speed about the events by Mr Potter, but I would like to briefly revisit the topic.” Dumbledore levels his gaze at Regulus, who keeps a carefully neutral expression. “I understand that we have you, Mr Black, to thank for the outcome of the situation yesterday. It could have been far more dire.”

James chooses this moment to clink cups together dramatically. Regulus glances briefly at Remus, as if seeking help in an unfamiliar situation, then slips into the schooled politeness Sirius immediately recognizes.

“Thank you, sir. It was the most I could do at the time, and it wouldn’t have been the same without my brother and the Potters’ support.” His upper lip trembles, which is possibly some really good acting on his part. “I would like to take the time to apologise for missing the danger that was posed by the partially active Dark Mark. It was not my--”

“That was impossible to foresee.” Dumbledore waves his beringed hand about. Sirius bristles a little, because to him it’s an obvious oversight, both on Regulus’ side and theirs. “Ms Evans--uh, Potter--has assured me that this risk has been defused and I trust her judgement.”

Lily pulls a face like she’s not all that sure herself. James comes in with the cups and pours everyone steaming hot tea. The toast is still lying untouched in the center of the table, and Sirius’ stomach growls.

“There are, however, other risks we ought to be concerned about,” Dumbledore continues. Sirius crosses his arms over his chest, expecting a remark about people throwing and attending parties in the midst of a war, but it doesn’t come. “For one, they will keep hunting you, Mr Black, and you are probably well aware that this is about more than just defection from their ranks. You have uncovered the Dark Lord’s greatest secret, and he will want to punish you most severely for that transgression and the danger you now pose to him.”

Regulus looks ahead, chin high, nostrils flared. Sirius feels something warm blossom in his chest and shakes it off with a quick shrug.

“We are aware of that,” James says. “Thus--the safehouse.”

“But we can’t stay here indeterminately,” Sirius adds. He’s on a leave of absence from his job, but he’s not sure how much patience his boss, Mrs Eden-Davies, is going to have with him.

“It was impressive foresight to put these safehouses into being, James.” Dumbledore nods and James glows, since this was his pet-project last winter. “The Death Eaters are just one facet of the danger we face, I am afraid. Our own office of Law Enforcement will surely be turning their eyes this way, as they are now well aware that the Black heir not only lives, but also is a defector from Death Eater ranks. This makes the young Regulus a valuable source of information and a convenient prize for the public that expects progress in hunting Voldemort’s minions. They will inevitably make the connection between you, Regulus, and Sirius and Remus, if they haven’t yet, and they will come for you. I am also concerned about Mr Potter’s future in the department.”

Sirius sighs, mentally waving Mrs Eden-Davies and his cosy job goodbye. James fidgets with his cup, undoubtedly thinking back to how he lied to his trainers and colleagues yesterday to save Regulus’ hide.

Dumbledore looks at all of them from above his half-moon glasses.

“Due to all this, I would like to ask the three of you to leave the United Kingdom.”

Lily whips her head around to look at James. Sirius catches Remus’ eye. He’s expected this, on some level, maybe not expatriation, exactly, but that their life would inevitably change with taking Regulus in, because he’s a fugitive and an estranged relative and a Slytherin brat. He hasn’t expected packing up and leaving or Bellatrix throwing Unforgivables around in their backyard, or how immensely awkward and weird it could be with the three of them, but if someone offered to take him back in time, back to that horrible crystal cave, he would jump into that freezing lake all the same.

“Are you asking us to run?” Remus inquires.

“Not exactly,” Dumbledore replies, unbearably smug. “I am asking you to leave for mainland Europe, which will help keep you safe and away from the most dangerous--elements that might be looking for you, that much is right. But there is more to the journey you will be embarking on. Namely, there is something I would like you to recover: a priceless artifact lost somewhere in Central Europe.”

“Is it a Horcrux?” Regulus’ voice breaks strangely on the last word.

“No, it’s not.” Dumbledore shakes his head. There’s an almost palpable tension in the room as they all hold their breath. “It is a vessel that shows you glimpses of the future. Different versions of it, depending on the path we might take in the present. Possibly different for each person that uses the artifact. I believe that if we look into it, we might be shown a way to defeat Voldemort.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: as the tags mention, Remus identifies as gay in this piece (and this AU). That does not necessarily mean that he will not embrace a different identity later on. It is not my intention to erase anyone's bisexuality.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! Real life got in the way... and it turned out longer than I expected. But there it is!

After the Headmaster leaves, the Gryffindors talk themselves up into a frenzy about the artefact and Cracow and how to get there and what it means for the Order, which is what they call their little guerilla organization that is apparently supposed to stand against Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Regulus sits at the table, attempting not to imagine how much more miserable his life is going to become and probably getting his first white hairs in the process, then gets up to have a cigarette on the porch. He remembers he doesn’t have his own smokes halfway there and hides in the hall to silently Accio Sirius’ pack from his jacket while the rest are occupied with the topic of procuring Muggle documents for the three of them.

He expects Sirius to come for him but it’s Remus instead.

“How are you?” He hobbles carefully onto the porch and sits on the top step next to Regulus. The collar of his jumper comes up to his nose, but doesn’t hide the dark-ringed, tired eyes.

“I should probably be the one asking.” Regulus glances at him over the cigarette.

“Oh, please, no. I abhor that question. Uh, do you mind if I smoke?”

“Not at all.” He thrusts the pack at Lupin and lights the one he puts in his mouth, like it’s a routine they share. Lupin’s eyes follow his hands. “These are Sirius’ anyway.”

“Thought so.” Lupin clears his throat and clicks his tongue, as if gearing up for something, so Regulus goes in for a pre-emptive strike.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” he asks, keeping his voice as level and non-committal as he can. “I’m still who I was before. A year ago or three. Same person. And, frankly, if I hadn’t sent Kreacher to you back then, our crazy cousin wouldn’t have dragged you behind that dustbin and--”

“Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t.” Lupin shrugs, taking a deep, thoughtful puff. “We were well aware of the risks when we were taking you in, believe me. Getting back to your original question, I am nice to people by default. I’ve learned niceness can get you quite far.”

“Aren’t people taking advantage of that?”

“Why? Do you think it’s naïve? That’s what Sirius thinks.”

“I’m a Slytherin. I think everyone else is being naïve.”

Remus snorts, smoke blowing out of his nostrils, and tilts his head.

“Hey, could you explain something to me?”

“Er.” Regulus swallows in his suddenly dry throat and stubs out his cigarette to avoid looking directly at Lupin. “Yes, sure.”

“This cynical, cunning Slytherin image that you are trying to project for us doesn’t fit with that you did for me in the hospital and before, at home.” Lupin gestures with the hand holding the cigarette and smoke disperses in the cold air. “Sirius and Lily told me about it. It was really brave, facing four Death Eaters alone, and at a disadvantage, too. You could have just fled. You had ample time to run out into the street and Disapparate. They would have never found you.”

“That would be really low of me, don’t you think?” Regulus looks up at him, offended. Lupin’s eyes crease in the corners as if he’s holding back a smile.

“And later on, when you pulled that Heir-of-Black card on the Healer. You had absolutely no personal interest in doing that. More so, you’ve blown your cover completely, and by now, everyone is sure to know you’re still around. And yet--”

“Is it so surprising to you that I’m a decent human being, Lupin? After what we’ve been through? What do you want from me, a written letter of confirmation that I turned away from Voldemort for the goodness of my heart?”

“Just to thank you.” Lupin smiles at him around the cigarette. “You clearly went out of your way for me. See, in my little Gryffindor heart I counted on you being a good Slytherin, and I was right.”

Regulus looks at him, tamping down on the things his face wants to express. Luckily, he has years of repression to fall back on, and far more distressing things that he’s survived with a straight face.

“There’s no need to thank me,” he says, rising and dusting off his slacks. “I did what was right, and I would do it for anyone, regardless of the situation.”

He knows it’s not true and suspects Lupin knows it too, judging from the incredulous look on his face, and it just doesn’t seem like a sensible start to a trip to Europe together, so he just gives Lupin a nod and leaves, dignity mostly intact.

He bumps into Sirius on his way back.

“There you are,” he says, mouth twisting in a scowl. He’s wearing a t-shirt with a coat of arms and an inscription that says Queen, which seems oddly fitting. “Come on. We’re talking supplies and, knowing you, you won’t want to leave without six pairs of bespoke trousers.”

Regulus at this point has only one pair of trousers altogether, but it seems like a moot point to discuss with Sirius, so he goes along. This is his new modus operandi: just going along with their ideas. They’ll have to wait for their Muggle identification to arrive--sure, why not, there are Order members guarding them and serving them breakfast. They need money for paying off the Muggles and the supplies--he will retrieve his cache of Black money and gladly hand it over to Potter’s wife who takes it as if it were a bag of live snakes. They want to avoid travel by Portkey entirely--all right, he will grace the British Railways with his presence. He draws the line at one thing only.

“I’ll need to send a letter before we leave,” he says to no-one in particular when they’re busy packing the day before setting off.

“A letter? To whom?” Sirius is sorting through his t-shirts, choosing, as far as Regulus can see, the most outrageous ones.

“To Mother,” Regulus says with dignity.

“To your mother?” Sirius replies dumbly as if he himself has sprung from the earth or been carried in by the elves from some secret source or Pureblood firstborns. “You can’t be serious. You can’t be contacting anyone from the family.”

“I just want to let her know I’m all right.”

“No way. I’m sure she’s under strict surveillance.” Sirius snorts derisively and dumps the shirts into his suitcase. “If not working with them to find us.”

“I’m not looking for your approval,” Regulus announces, and the temperature in the room drops. “I’m just informing you that this will need to happen.”

“This Black heir thing must have gotten to your head.” Sirius glares at him from under his hair. “It’s dangerous and it’s futile, because _nothing_ \--do you hear me--nothing you say now will even be within the _realm_ of acceptable to her--”

“What’s going on here?” Lupin asks from the doorway, where he’s just appeared with Potter’s wife in tow. Regulus is annoyed with how they can’t even have a petty squabble with someone intervening. He doesn’t know how to communicate with Sirius outside of petty squabbling yet.

They explain, Sirius in his daft and biased way, and Regulus as calmly as he can under the circumstances.

“I’ll send your letter,” Lily says after a beat. Sirius huffs angrily. “Long after you’ve gone, of course, and from a public post owl.”

“Is this--” Lupin starts but Lily continues, staring Regulus down:

“You will need to do something for me first.”

“And what is that?” Regulus arches a brow.

“Renounce the Pureblood ideology.”

Sirius groans and flings himself onto the sofa.

“She made me do that when we became friends, too. You have to be sincere, she will know if you’re not. Somehow. Not too hard for me, I never believed in that shite anyway.”

“Didn’t you?” Lupin asks innocently and Sirius shoots him an offended look.

“I’m just saying.” Lily takes a step forward, which brings her right in front of Regulus in the middle of the living room. “If I am to do you any favours, Black, if we are to cooperate and potentially spend even more time together in the future, I would like to know if you renounce beliefs that are hurtful to me as a person, and to my friends, and my family.”

“I--” Regulus wilts and falters, put on the spot like this. “I--I never got particularly invested in the ideological angle of it--”

“So it shouldn’t be too difficult for you either,” Lily says, mercilessly. Sirius sits up, the earlier slight apparently forgotten in lieu of Regulus’ upcoming humiliation. “Go ahead.”

“I don’t believe in blood supremacy,” he says, testing out the phrase. They never called it that, after all. “I don’t think Purebloods, or wizards and witches in overall, are inherently better than Muggles. Half-bloods make perfectly good wizards. Magical creatures don’t deserve the abuse they receive from us nor the servitude we force upon them. None of it, however you frame it, could ever excuse violence. Is that good enough for you?”

He’s been looking her straight in the eyes the whole time so he knows it is, but she still takes her time to fully digest it and finally nod.

“Yes. Thank you.”

Sirius lets out a long-suppressed breath.

“Whew. That was really heart-warming. I didn’t know you felt that way about this stuff. I kinda assumed you did, but--”

“People change their minds, Sirius,” Regulus snaps at him, but doesn’t continue. He certainly wants to avoid a repeat of their earlier row about parents.

“This would make for great propaganda,” Lupin chimes in, perhaps because he can sense an echo of that row too. “Two Pureblood scions admitting it’s all rubbish.”

“Oh, yeah, we could send it to _The Prophet_. I doubt they’d print it, though.”

He writes the letter later in the evening, consisting mostly of assurances that he’s alive and well, though he’s not sure how true the latter one is. The wound on his forearm is not healing properly; it blisters, leaks and hurts, but he doesn’t tell anyone--it’s like his personal punishment for taking the Mark. He writes Mother that he won’t be coming home anytime soon but it feels like an understatement; he won’t be going back ever and no amount of homesickness is going to change that. He’s trying not to imagine how she’s going to react; he knows she’s in despair. He’s ruined everything she’s been working for her whole life for, however Sirius and Lily Potter might feel about it.

Sirius circles him like a vulture when he’s writing, huffing and muttering under his nose, which Regulus studiously ignores. Sirius finally leaves to finish his packing and Lupin sits down opposite of Regulus to compose a letter of his own. He chews on the end of his quill a lot, clearly struggling, and Regulus wonders if he needs to lie to his parents: about the danger he’s in, the things he’s doing, perhaps about Sirius too. He wonders what kind of people his parents have to be to put a werewolf into school, to push him into this inhospitable, cruel world so affable and kind by default. Before he met Lupin, he never knew werewolves could lead normal lives, work in bookshops, mend their socks patiently with their tongues sticking out just a little bit. He assumed all of them would be like Greyback.

He leaves the letter with Lily, about two-thirds certain that she will actually post it for him. He’s gleaned from their conversations that she is not on particularly good terms with her family too, but he’s avoided any ill-fitting comparisons so far. He’s too new in navigating these new waters, the intermingling of all kinds of social classes and statuses among Sirius’ friends and peers. He meets a lot of them since they have Order guards basically living with them, keeping watch day and night--but there are no further attempts on his or Lupin’s life. Perhaps they’ve hid well. Or there’s something else going on. Regulus doesn’t believe for a second that anyone will let his crime against Voldemort slip, not when he’s handed the locket over to Dumbledore and all of his research to the Order. He still wakes up in a cold sweat nearly every night, convinced that Bellatrix is creeping up to his bed in the dark, her eyes shining like an animal’s. It’s unbelievable they used to sit at a table together during holidays, make conversation, drink coffee in the lounge--for all the jokes about the Black temper, it’s quite a jump to her trying to murder Regulus beside a rubbish heap in a Muggle backyard.

They finally leave on a crispy, freezing morning, Polyjuiced as Muggles that look vaguely similar to them. Their identification is also set out for Muggles: Reginald and Stanley White, brothers, travelling with a John Moon, their mutual friend. Potter, whose mates fabricated the passports, thinks the surnames are an amazing joke, but Lupin doesn’t seem all that amused by his, which Regulus kind of understands. He wouldn’t be happy with a passport under the name of Reggie Fairy either.

The goodbye is an awkward affair, with a lot of hugs and a few surreptitiously shed and wiped tears, mostly on Potter’s part. Faced with the imminent reality of their departure, Sirius doesn’t seem all that happy either, clinging to Potter far longer than appropriate. In the corner, Lupin whispers fervently with Potter’s wife. Regulus watches from the sidelines and receives an awkward pat on the shoulder from Pettigrew. Nobody wants to hug the reason why they’re leaving.

They pass through the railway station unnoticed and get onto the train to Dover. Sirius is tense and sweating despite his open jacket, and Lupin, pale himself, lays a calming hand on his thigh.

“They wouldn’t jump us here in the open like that.” Regulus says, surprising himself by acting on the impulse to make Sirius feel better.

“Who knows.” Sirius spreads his knees in a comfortable stance and Lupin takes his hand away. “I’ll feel better about this whole thing in France. Or better yet, in Germany. I can’t believe we’ve lost our flat, though.”

“What?” Lupin exclaims. “You hated it.”

“I didn’t. I just started to like it. And now we’re homeless. Our stuff is homeless too.”

“Our things are at James’. And we’re not homeless, you pillock, we’re going to have a place to stay in Cracow.”

“It’s not the same,” Sirius grumbles. Regulus wonders if he knows that his old bedroom at home has been kept the way it was when he walked out four years ago, with dust collecting on his Gryffindor banners and half-read books and everything else he’s left behind like refuse.

In Dover, they board a ferry and bid goodbye to England, which makes Regulus queasy and wistful in a way that earlier events haven’t, as if their physical departure made the real difference. Sirius leans on the railing next to him, looking at the white cliffs growing smaller and smaller, but doesn’t say anything, which perhaps is for the better.

From Dunkirk, they take a train to Brussels. Sirius insists on them eating warm dinner outside the station and they barely make it to their connection to Dortmund. It’s Regulus’ first time outside of the English and French Wizarding world and he finds it difficult to believe people are not looking at him curiously as he’s hurriedly following Sirius and Lupin around. Lupin, in his turtleneck jumper and beige peacoat, blends in really well. Sirius, with his long hair and black nails, stands out, but in a Muggle way too, somehow. Regulus insisted on wearing a three piece suit, his approximation of what a Muggle of his standing would wear, but they talked him out of it and Potter bought him a navy greatcoat that almost feels like outer robes. It’s warm and the huge collar makes for a great pillow for a nap on the train, and he feels bad for never thanking Potter for it.

In Dortmund, they eat sausages from a roadside stand and rent a room for the night in a rundown hotel Father wouldn’t as much as blink at. It’s a triple, which proves quite challenging for Regulus: not only does he have to spend both the day and night with his aggravating brother, who doesn’t shut his mouth even when he absolutely has nothing of substance to say, but also with Lupin, who does outrageous things like strip to his vest and lie down on the double bed in Regulus’ presence.

“Do you like travelling?” he asks when Sirius goes to take a shower, rolling over to his chest, face propped on his hands. His injuries healed and colour returned to his face sometime last week, but today he’s looking exhausted again.

“I don’t know.” Regulus takes of his boots and slides them underneath his bed. “I’ve never done it this way, except for the Hogwarts Express.”

“This is the farthest away I’ve ever been.” Lupin looks around the room. It’s dingy. There’s a spider web in one corner that looks ancient. “My parents wanted to move when I was little and one of the ideas was Belgium. But we never went, eventually.”

“How old were you when--” Regulus asks before he can stop himself.

Lupin, unfortunately, knows exactly what he means. He twists onto his back and lets out a breath that Regulus thinks means the end of this conversation, so he’s staring at the wall, ashamed, when Lupin says:

“Five.”

Regulus winces. It’s a reflex.

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be.” Lupin shrugs. It’s not a gesture meant to convey a lot of emotion, but something in the set of his shoulders and eyebrows, the only visible feature of his face, betrays a profound sadness.

Later, when Sirius puts up wards for the night and comes up to the window, Regulus notices the moon hanging heavy and three quarters full in the clear night sky. Sirius takes a look at his watch, as if to check the time, but Regulus knows that it also tracks magical holidays and the movements of celestial bodies. Judging from the view, there are about three days left until the full moon, and Regulus feels a shiver run through him. It’s not the fear that Lupin will tear his throat out, or any other body part, but rather a morbid and shameful curiosity about how lycanthropy affects Lupin’s body and mind.

Sirius yanks the curtain closed and gets into bed, sliding under the same duvet as Lupin. Regulus lies there with his eyes open for quite a long time, fighting the urge to scratch his unhealing wound.

He gets a chance to talk to Sirius the following day, when Remus is buying them train tickets at the cash desk.

“How are we going to make it work, Sirius?” he asks, leaning in close.

“What?” Sirius squints at him and lights a cigarette, covering his flame-sparking hand with the other one. He pointedly doesn’t offer him one.

“The full moon,” Regulus mouths.

“You don’t need to worry your little head about it.”

“Why do you need to be so patronising? Does it make you feel better somehow?”

“Maybe it does.” Sirius shrugs. “So what?”

“I am worried, because we’re in this together now. You shouldn’t be keeping these things from me.”

“Oh, I guarantee you we’re not in _this_ together.” Sirius scowls at him as if offended. “Remus and I will handle it like we always do, and the extent of your involvement is going to be making breakfast for us afterwards.”

Regulus shakes his head. His eyes land on Lupin, who is hunched over at the ticket desk, explaining something to the confused German clerk.

“That’s really immature of you, Sirius, do you know?”

“Just because you’ve stumbled onto his secret by accident doesn’t mean you get everything handed to you,” Sirius barks at him. “It’s unlike anything you know, and I had to earn it, all of us did. The trust and our place in it. Not to mention--”

He pauses because Lupin is now on his way to them, in his long, slightly uneven gait. He is bearing three tickets in a triumphantly outstretched hand.

“I’ve got ‘em! Let’s go, gentlemen!”

Sirius shoots Regulus an annoyed glance, as if challenging him to pick up the conversation, but Regulus just rolls his eyes at him. He would have reconsidered this whole defection thing had he known it would include hanging out with his brother, honestly.

The train takes them to Berlin, which is a city divided in two for some weird Muggle reason that even Remus has trouble explaining. They pass the first border control at Wolfsburg without a hitch, but in Berlin the train stops for a full hour with no explanation, and then there are Muggles searching every inch of the car with dogs and shouts in German that have Regulus slightly unnerved. For the first time in his life, he can’t just whip out his family signet ring and demand they go on. Their Muggle documents are scrutinized and found lacking and the Muggles want them to get off the train to answer some questions in a border station.

“What do we do now,” Sirius hisses, taking his suitcase down from the luggage compartment.

“We go and we behave,” Lupin whispers back, fixing them both with a look. “All right?”

The Muggles of the _Transport Polizei_ lead them to a grey building and make them sit down in a depressing waiting room, but don’t take their luggage, which has Lupin exhale with relief. There’s a collection of Defense texts and grimoires in his suitcase that has been transfigured tiny but would look very shady to a curious Muggle, as well as a similarly scaled down collection of music records, and Regulus doesn’t know what else. His luggage is mostly clothing and books, but nothing that should look suspicious to the Germans.

They first take in Lupin, apparently the most suspicious out of the three of them. When he comes back, he looks annoyed and exhausted.

“They say the visas are funky,” he explains, sitting down next to Sirius who is sprawled in his chair. “As far as I’ve understood.”

“They were supposed to be foolproof.” Sirius sits up, alert. “I’m so going to make Prongs pay when we get back. Merlin’s hairy bollocks! What do we do now?”

“I don’t know.” Lupin shakes his head. “They’ll probably want to talk to you too--”

“What? You’re our resident Muggle expert!”

“This is out of my expertise, Sirius. I’ve told you, passing through the Iron Curtain is notoriously difficult even for Muggles.”

“Let’s just Disapparate out of here and figure it out from there,” Sirius suggests.

“We can’t do that, Padfoot,” Lupin says, endlessly patient. “Lily explained. We need them to stamp our visas for us to move around freely in East Germany and Poland and anywhere else we might need to go--”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember.” Sirius twiddles his thumbs. “Still. That would be the easiest solution. As it is, we’re stuck in Berlin.”

Before they can discuss it further, the Germans take Regulus in. One of them speaks enough English for Regulus to solve this whole mess quickly and quite smoothly, exactly the way he learned from his father. When they walk him out, all the officers are smiling, and they even carry their luggage back onto the train.

“What the hell have you done, Reg?” Sirius hisses at him the moment the compartment door closes. “Confound and Obliviate--”

“I’ve bribed them, Sirius.” Regulus sits down and dusts off his slacks. "I’ve bribed a lot of people this year. You wouldn’t believe who has happily accepted Galleons for some truly sensitive information.”

Lupin slaps his thigh in glee.

“Let me make this clear--you’ve spent the Black family fortune to bribe your way to Voldemort’s greatest secret?”

“I didn’t _spend_ it,” Regulus says. “I couldn’t have. There’s heaps of money in that vault, plus deeds to a number of estates and some ancient and costly items, some of which our family apparently has forgotten about.”

“You’ve been to the vault?” Sirius furrows his brows. “When?”

“After Father--” Regulus clears his throat. “After the funeral.”

“Ah.” Sirius looks out the window, suddenly interested in the view as the train lurches forward.

Regulus suspected that Sirius did actually attend the funeral, just not officially. There was someone dressed in a black Muggle coat sitting in the last pew, looking vaguely like their cousin Frédéric. When Mother launched herself at the coffin in her hysterics, he was the only one outside of their immediate family not to flee the chapel in utter mortification. Regulus felt this odd impulse to come up and talk to him, but then Mother broke some of her nails against the coffin and aunt Druella screamed at him to end _this bloody spectacle_ and he had that clear, terrifying thought that this was going to be the rest of his life if he didn’t do anything about it, while Sirius, presumably, went home and aggressively non-cried into his boyfriend’s jumper.

“I wonder where Bowie lives in Berlin,” Lupin says, which diverts their attention successfully to the Muggle singer and his whereabouts. Unfortunately, their train is so delayed they miss the last connection to Cracow and land in Warsaw late in the evening, cold, hungry and exhausted.

The city looks unlike anything Regulus has ever seen in his life. The architecture is monumental and stark, and strangely new, unlike the centre of London. It’s Sunday evening and all the shops and restaurants seem to be closed. They don’t blend in anymore, too: any passers-by they see are dressed in a different fashion and identify them as foreigners immediately, gazing at them curiously.

“What have you read about this place?” Sirius asks, huffing into his hands and rubbing them together.

“Um--it was destroyed in the last world war.” Even Lupin seems slightly overwhelmed as they walk past the unfamiliar, looming buildings. “Reduced to a pile of rubble. They rebuilt it from scratch. The Muggles here--they are governed in a different way than on the Isles--”

He launches into a lengthy explanation that doesn’t really do anything to help Regulus, but it seems to get through to Sirius, or at least he’s pretending it does, nodding vigorously. Regulus spots a pedestrian waiting for a green light nearby and walks up to him to ask about a hotel, and the man points to a tall, slim building overhead that rather resembles a cutting board.

Sirius makes a beeline for the clerk while Lupin telephones their contact in Cracow. Regulus is lounging against the countertop, admiring the interior of the hotel, which is stylish and modern and not at all like the outside, and trying not to be too obvious at how perplexing he finds telephones.

“Hi, this is Remus Lupin.” Lupin says into a piece of weirdly-shaped plastic. “Yes. We have. But we missed the last train to Cracow. Uh-huh. At the--” he leans towards Regulus. “What’s the name of this place?”

“Forum,” Regulus reads off the wall.

“At the Forum. Yes. No, we do have funds. Don’t worry. We’ve got tickets for the 8 am tomorrow.” Regulus grimaces at that. He was imagining a longer affair with his hotel bed, as he’s suspecting that his future doesn’t teem with comfy mattresses. “Uh, we had a little complication but we’ve managed. Yeah. Thank you, Barbara. We will. See you tomorrow.” Lupin puts the piece of plastic back onto its holder. The two pieces fit perfectly.

“Is she a Muggle, this Barbara?” he asks.

“Shh.” Lupin puts a finger to his lips. “She told me to avoid these topics when in public. She’ll pick us up tomorrow at the station.”

Sirius comes up to them with a key and they take an elevator to the tenth floor. The room is a triple--apparently Regulus is now condemned to sharing triples with a couple of Gryffindors--who are actually a Gryffindor couple--sweet Merlin--but the view of this unfamiliar city is gorgeous. In the distance, there’s a river, and the city sprawls on the other side of it too, a little bit like London, which makes him wonder just how different his life would be if he had been born here, in Warsaw. Maybe even in a Muggle family, because there’s a bigger chance of that than being born in an ancient Pureblood family.

“It was a brilliant idea,” Sirius says, coming up to stand next to him at the window. He’s drying off his hair with a towel. “With the bribe. I wouldn’t have thought of it.”

“What a compliment. Aren’t you worried it’s going to go to my head?”

“It’s already there.” Sirius makes a face. “But that. What you did. You know, before. It must have been hell all alone.”

“I was so scared that most of the time I didn’t really register anything else.”

Sirius snorts.

“Why didn’t you come to anyone for help? You must have known we would be sympathetic to your cause.”

“Maybe to the cause. Not necessarily to me.”

Sirius fixes him with a look and for a split second it’s like Regulus is seeing himself through his brother’s eyes: thin, somewhat piteous, ultimately not a very good sibling, generally inclined towards keeping his head down. He wonders if Sirius knows that the passivity and conformity were his means of survival. He doesn’t think so; Sirius has never really been good at recognizing others as separate individuals gifted with independent thought and that probably hasn’t changed.

“Go to sleep,” Sirius says, brusque. “We’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

When Remus comes back from his shower and slips into bed, Sirius throws an arm over his waist and splays his fingers on his belly. Regulus needs to turn the lights off the Muggle way and he sighs repeatedly on his way to the switch and back, mostly to express his discontent, but also to distract himself from Lupin’s form under the bedclothes.

He’s in way deep, he really is, because he can’t help but think of the kiss (bad sibling, exhibit one). The press of Lupin’s dry lips against his, his surprised exhale, the soft blond stubble on Remus’ cheek. And the way Remus looms over him: there’s something enticing about his height, about how he’s usually only faced with Remus’ neck and when they talk Remus has to lean down to him. It makes him think he’d enjoy making Remus bend or kneel or lie down, but that’s definitely a dangerous thought when Remus’ long legs are brushing his under the breakfast table and Sirius is rambling about sausages on his right.

Lupin seems rather shirty today and when Sirius makes a dumb comment about the waitress, he snaps his head off. The atmosphere is more than a little tense when they get onto the train bound to Cracow, but then they come across a linguistics professor that is interested in foreigners travelling Poland alone and Sirius lies to him outrageously the whole way. Regulus is not that much surprised--Sirius used to lie to their parents through his teeth, day in and day out--but he’s obviously ascended to a whole new level. By the time they arrive in Cracow, the professor is entirely convinced he’s talking to a Yorkshire miner, while Regulus and Lupin are avoiding each other’s eyes in order not to crack up.

They wave goodbye to the poor professor and stumble down the platform, overlooking Barbara in the process, which is clearly a case of mistaken assumptions, because from what he knew about her--history student, aspiring archivist, knows Dumbledore from an international pen club for arcane magic aficionados--Regulus expected her to be old-fashioned and bookish. The girl that comes up to greet them is pretty, dressed in a pair of jeans as tight as Sirius’ and constantly flicking a very modern haircut out of her eyes.

“Hi?” She says, eyes flicking from Lupin to Sirius and Regulus and back again. “Are you--”

“Hello, Barbara.” Lupin catches her outstretched hand in both of his and leans in conspiratorially. “We are, but, even at the risk of sounding impolite, we’d rather have a full greeting in a more secure location.”

“Oh, sure, yes.” She graces them with a smile. “Come with me, please.”

Barbara leads them out of the train station and across a car park, then into a wide pedestrian underpass. Lupin walks next to her, getting the most out of what she’s saying about the city, and Regulus and Sirius are tailing at them at an uneven pace: Sirius stopping to light a cigarette, Regulus looking around like an awestruck child, at the strangely dressed people, stalls with local pastries, queues in front of shops, signs in a language he completely doesn’t understand. The city itself seems a lot more like London than Warsaw with its old buildings, narrow streets and cobblestone alleys.

“Here we are.” Barbara waves at the imposing doorway of a building that Regulus recognizes as a townhouse, even though it looks nothing like their house on Grimmauld Place. “It’s on the second floor.”

She unlocks the door and Sirius opens it for her, flashing her a charming grin. Barbara colours slightly under the attention and Regulus sighs, catching Lupin’s eyes. The sentiment must be shared, because the corner of his mouth goes up in a wry smile.

The flat is spacious and oddly decorated, with a mix of antique and modern furniture. It doesn’t seem entirely lived in, though, with the exception of a room that Barbara designates as hers.

“Do you live here alone?” Lupin asks, incredulous.

“No, it’s just that my parents are in Lebanon for the winter,” Barbara explains, closing the doors on her slightly messy collection of moving and unmoving photos and posters on the wall. “I’m in my second year at university, so I can only join them for Christmas.”

“Are they wizards, your parents?”

“No, they’re--um--what do you call it?”

“Muggles.”

“Yes, they’re Muggles. I’m Muggleborn. I attended a wizarding school in Canada, and then we had to go back and they wanted me to attend the university here.”

“I’m half-blood myself,” Lupin offers. “But these two are pureblood, so be careful when introducing them to technology.”

Regulus gives a self-deprecating nod, but Sirius takes offense.

“That’s uncalled for. I can actually drive a motorcycle.”

Barbara gives Sirius a once-over that is clearly going serve as fuel for a number of images of him bent over the vehicle in question, but before it can go any further, the front door creaks open. They all whip their wands out in an instant, Lupin low, at the hip, and Sirius in a classic duelling stance that Regulus is inadvertently mirroring.

“Whoa.” Barbara raises her hands as a stranger rounds the corner. “There’s no need for any of that. This is my boyfriend, Artur.”

Artur, fair-haired and bespectacled, looks quite annoyed at having three strangers point wands at him out of the blue and Barbara launches into an explanation in Polish while the three of them put the wands away. Lupin shuffles nervously, probably thinking about the statute of secrecy, because Artur looks indisputably Muggle, but Barbara pays it no mind and just introduces them to him, real names and all. Artur apparently doesn’t speak a lick of English, but gives them all a nod and a very firm handshake. Regulus sees Sirius wince under the force of his grasp.

Barbara asks her boyfriend something and he disappears into the spacious kitchen, presumably to get them something to drink, and she clears her throat.

“Getting back to the topic of your accommodation--you’re quite welcome to stay here for the winter. Professor Dumbledore has shared some--details of your situation--”

“I’d like to be frank with your, Barbara,” Lupin says, putting his hands together as if in supplication. “We are wanted men, however dramatic that might sound. I don’t know how much you’re privy to, but we are at risk--”

“I know enough,” Barbara replies. Her jaw is set and for a second she looks like what Regulus fancies a fierce female knight would. “I know there’s a lot of unrest in Wizarding Britain and that you’re in the resistance. My grandparents were in the resistance during the war, the World War. They wouldn’t have survived if someone hadn’t helped them out. That’s why I’ve offered for you to stay, not only help you to find the artefact. It’s the right thing to do.”

He wasn’t so far off with his noble comparison, it seems. The Gryffindors are eating it up, of course, prodding for details as Barbara shows them to their rooms: a small chamber with a convertible sofa, that Regulus immediately recognizes as former servants’ quarters, and a bedroom containing an antique, creaky double bed.

There’s a frantic exchange of looks between Sirius and Lupin, because it makes a lot more sense for brothers to share a room than mates and it would be quite a juggling act to explain just why they’d like to switch--but Regulus is feeling especially charitable today, so he offers to take the sofa bed to spare them. Sirius is taken aback, mouth gaping, but Lupin takes it in stride.

“Oh, we shared a dormitory for seven years at school,” he says with that timid smile that could persuade anyone to trust him, as it did Regulus not that long ago. “It’s not a problem, not at all. Thank you for your hospitality, Barbara.”

Regulus expects a medal for allowing Sirius to bugger his boyfriend in peace, but he’ll make do with less.

“Do you have a cigarette?” he asks Sirius with an arched eyebrow, and Sirius coughs up his pack without a word of protest. Barbara tells them to smoke in the kitchen with the door closed and the windows open and they march off. Artur, who has just finished brewing something that might or might not be coffee, bums one off of them through some impressive pantomime and then proceeds to be awestruck by Sirius striking flame with a snap of his fingers. Regulus rolls his eyes at the showing off but is ultimately still as amazed at Sirius’ aptitude at wandless magic as he was at ten.

When Lupin and Barbara come into the kitchen, Sirius’ eyes flick immediately to him. Regulus wanders what would happen if Sirius ever came home with Lupin, in all his threadbare, tall, scarred glory. What he’d look like seated at their dining table, eating from their ornamental plates, drinking from the cut crystal glasses. He wouldn’t be able to use the silverware, of course, and they probably wouldn’t be able to make any conversation with all of Mother’s screaming.

Barbara and Artur take them out for some early dinner which also serves as an orientation to the intricacies of Muggle life in Cracow. Later they learn that the Wizarding world here is even more hidden than back at home, because the Muggles wanted to shut it down after the war as a remainder of the old world order. It does take Regulus the better part of an hour to get a grasp on the revolutions and uprisings and socialist governments, but he’s smart enough to understand that what they wanted to do away with were actually people like their family--even without Lupin’s knowing looks cast his and Sirius’ way every other minute.

Since Barbara has been doing research for her history thesis at the university, she’s been eschewing magical sources in favour of Muggle texts, which yielded an unexpected result: she found out about the Vortex.

“The Vortex?” Sirius repeats. They’re in the living room, huddled around the table, and Barbara is spreading out grainy black-and-white copies of ancient-looking texts.

“That is its Latin name, but it’s older than that.” She points to an unmoving photograph of a cuneiform tablet showing some kind of a round shape. “It’s positively ancient, possibly Sumerian. It arrived in Jerusalem from Nineveh about twenty five centuries ago and was brought to Europe sometime after the first crusade. It resurfaces in Rome--then in Prague--and then, finally, in Cracow, in 1423.”

“That’s all very interesting,” Regulus pipes in, “but what is it exactly?”

“According to these sources, it’s a kind of a mirror. Its surface is dark and warped, at least according to the medieval description, when all mirrors kind of looked like that.” Barbara smacks her lips, lost in thought for a moment. “Anyway, if you look into it four times, it is supposed to show you glimpses of the future. Three glimpses, to be exact.”

“Three, but you look into it four times?” Sirius asks.

“Yes. First, it shows you your present reflection.”

“So it only shows yourself? That’s not going to be very helpful.”

“That’s where it gets interesting. Hold on a second--” When what she’s looking for isn’t found in the papers on the table, she trots back to the ceiling-high bookshelf and rifles through a thick folder. Artur, looking dapper in a thick suede jacket, pops in to kiss her cheek and nod them goodbye, then leaves, casting Sirius a warning look.

Sirius gives him a dismissive once-over and Lupin slaps his knee for it.

“Stop picking fights.”

“I wasn’t, I was just looking.”

“Then stop looking.”

“All right, I’ve got it.” Barbara comes back, slightly out of breath and with an armful of hand-written notes. “Johannes Longinus, a Polish chronicler, noted in retelling someone else’s encounter that the artefact showed particular scenes from the individual’s life rather than just their reflection. In this case, the man looking into it was a tailor’s apprentice, and the mirror showed him surrounded by wealth accumulated through cloth trade, then in a modest workshop of his own, elderly, with his wife and children, and finally, as a lone drinker in the gutter, having not finished his apprenticeship at all.”

“So we can deduce that it shows other figures too,” Lupin chimes in. “As well as different locations and, possibly, different moments in time.”

“Yes. Different outcomes of the same starting situation.”

“And after 1423, are there any traces of it?” Regulus asks, trying not to scratch his itching wound.

“The last one I’ve found dates back to 1662, in the memoirs of a Polish nobleman,” Barbara says. “There are some earlier ones that I haven’t been able to follow up on yet, for various reasons. I hope you might be able to help me with those. I do have reason to believe it hasn’t left Poland, however.”

“Why?”

“Well, have you heard about it before? Such a powerful artifact, with such a long history?”

“No, not at all.” Lupin shakes his head and looks at Regulus, who shrugs.

“My research covered Britain, because it was relevant to the--to Voldemort. I don’t know much about Europe. But no, I haven’t.”

“See.” Barbara nods. “It’s probably still here, buried in somebody’s crypt. Or in a private collection, with the owner completely oblivious to what it really is. I think finding it is feasible. I could share all of my research with you.”

“We wouldn’t want to impose too much,” Lupin says. “Your studies--”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Barbara waves her hand. “I’m writing my dissertation on this. It will be appropriately censored for the Muggles, of course. And, well. Helping fight someone called ‘The Dark Lord’ seems like a reason in itself, don’t you think?”

It does, now that Regulus thinks about it. It’s not that he didn’t hear any warning bells going off about Voldemort before, but it all only started to bother him when he’d spent some time with Death Eaters and discovered just how serious they were about their supremacist bollocks.

“So, what’s our plan?” Sirius asks. His knee is bouncing again.

“I’ve got classes tomorrow,” Barbara says. “But I will try to get you passes for the university library, for which your passports could be helpful. You could familiarize yourself with what I’ve collected until now, I think, to have a basis for further research.”

“That sounds great,” Sirius says. “Just a quick question though: are there any ancient magic sites around? I did some work on them back at school and I like to take a look-see when I’m travelling. It’s kind of a hobby of mine.”

Regulus has never heard about that hobby of Sirius’ and there’s definitely something afoot, because Lupin gets up, collects their mugs and heads for the kitchen as if he’s not part of this conversation anymore.

“Uh, ancient sites?” Barbara furrows her brows in incomprehension. “Such as?”

“Oh, you know. Primal energy sites, like henges, barrows, remains of pagan temples--do you have anything like that around here?”

“Oh, yes! We’ve got the Ślęża mountain down south. There’s Łysa Góra too--the stone circles in the woods in Pomerania--”

“Stone circles sound brilliant!” Sirius pushes on. “Could you point me to that place real quick? I’d like to pop in, do a quick look around. Coordinates will do, if you could share them.”

“Now?” Barbara asks, incredulous.

“Whenever works for you. I’d like to go before we properly get into researching this, in order not to be distracted by anything.”

“Sure, yes. Let me get the map.”

She gets up and moves for the bookshelf again. Sirius must sense Regulus’ skepticism, because he turns and fixes him with a look that clearly means _silence_. It’s not necessary; as soon as Barbara starts telling Sirius about the stone circles deep in the woods, feared by the local population, he realises just what it is: Sirius is looking for a remote place to go with a werewolf on the full moon, which is both admirable in its craftiness and mind-bogglingly daft in its essence.

When Barbara heads to the kitchen, he turns to Sirius, who is lounging in his chair with one arm thrown over the backrest.

“Excuse me, but what exactly are you going to do? Let the wolf run wild in Pomerania while you hold on to the highest tree in the vicinity?”

Sirius sighs wearily as if Regulus was the utterly crazy one here.

“I am going to stay with him,” he says, unaffected, averting Regulus’ gaze.

“What, you can’t be--”

“I’m an Animagus,” Sirius explains in a hushed tone. There’s an expression on his face that Regulus hasn’t seen in years, if ever. “Remember how Grandfather Pollux could turn into a bloodhound? It skipped a generation. I can turn into a dog. A big one. As an animal, I am safe from the wolf’s bite, so I keep him company.”

“What--the--you--” Regulus has trouble digesting this both in details and its entirety. “You’re an Animagus? Unregistered?”

“Well, yeah, so keep a lid on this. This is a secret very few people know. But since we’re apparently going to live together for the foreseeable future--”

Barbara ducks into the room and they fall silent.

“We’re making coffee. Would you like some? I know it’s late, but this is wheat coffee--”

“Yeah, thanks!”

“Sure, thank you.”

She smiles and leaves, and they can hear her pick up a conversation with Lupin in the kitchen. Regulus hunches over the table in thought. Now it’s making sense: what Sirius can offer to Lupin no-one else can, it’s disgustingly romantic, it’s like they’re made for each other. And Sirius being a dog: a little bit on the nose, but so fitting at the same time.

“What kind of dog are you?” he asks, tilting his head.

Sirius glances at the door, looks back at Regulus and shakes his head like he’s shaking his hair out, and the movement continues down his body, drawing out fur, altering proportions, transforming body parts. It’s quick and silent, no command word, no flash of magic: all of a sudden, there’s a huge shaggy dog sitting next to Regulus. His eyes are intelligent and grey, and his panting muzzle reminds Regulus of Sirius’ cheeky grin.

Sirius turns back just before they come in with the odd wheat coffee and once they drink that, it’s all about preparing for their stay: setting up wards, hunting down duvets, blankets and pillowcases, unpacking suitcases. Barbara retires early on account of her morning classes, which makes it odd for them, as guests, to stay up alone, so Regulus slips into the bathroom to take advantage of the hot water.

When he comes out into the hall afterwards, Sirius and Lupin spring apart from each other. Sirius’s shirt is rucked up almost to his pits and there are bruises on his neck that can only be hickeys.

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself on my account,” Regulus says, as dignified as one can in flannel pyjamas. “Though it could be considered a little tactless to snog in someone’s hallway, wouldn’t it?”

“You little--” Sirius bares his teeth.

“Goodnight, Regulus,” Lupin says, arm clamping on Sirius’ forearm and moving him into another direction. “Get your arse in there, I’ll be right with you.”

Regulus power-walks into his room and leans back against the closed door, huffing out a breath of relief. For a second there it seemed like Lupin’s eyes took on a strange shine in the dim light, but he blames it on the lighting, just as weird as everything in this flat, because he will not allow any other explanation to come to the surface of his mind. He wonders if that animalistic fear ever runs through Sirius, when Lupin’s big hand closes suddenly on his arm or shoulder or the nape of his neck, but maybe Sirius is more evolved than he is, not allowing any of his old prejudice to affect his present life. Though that seems doubtful.

He hears Lupin banging and tinkering around in the bathroom, then his steps in the hallway, coming to a stop at the front door, and eventually walking away to the bedroom he’s sharing with Sirius. Regulus turns off the Muggle lights and lies down in bed with his wand light on. He attempts to read some of the _Dorian Gray_ novel Lupin lent him but it’s difficult to focus with the strangeness of the situation and homesickness bearing on him, and he eventually dozes off with the book still in his lap. It’s a restless sleep, interrupted every other hour by the sounds in the staircase or in the street outside, so morning has him groggy and tired.

The night hasn’t been gentle on Lupin either: he comes out of the bedroom only for food and tea, pale all over save for an unhealthy blush high on his cheeks.

“Good morning.” His hands are shaking as he butters his bread roll. Regulus is desperately trying to think of something neutral to say, but his head is suddenly completely empty.

“Hey. Uh. Good morning.”

Remus gives him a nod and disappears in the bedroom for the remainder of the day, which for Regulus means a lot of time to spend one-on-one with Sirius. As much as he dreads it during breakfast, it turns out better than he expected; at one point they go out for food and have a whole adventure with Muggles and their strange currencies and that crackling language they speak that neither of them can in the least comprehend. Regulus is conflicted about it: on the one hand, it’s nice to have a brother again, on the other, it feels sudden and not necessarily genuine.

In the afternoon, Lupin emerges from the bedroom dressed in a particularly shabby outfit. He avoids looking at either one of them as Sirius gets up from his nap, puts on his boots, his jacket, ties his hair back, drinks a whole glass of water and takes Lupin by the arm. It’s almost like they’re going out for a walk.

“Be careful,” Sirius tells him even though he’s the one staying safely home. “We’ll be seeing you in the morning.”

They walk out the door, Lupin with his head bowed, and Disapparate from the landing. Regulus stands there awkwardly, holding Barbara’s notes, wondering what to do with the rest of the day, until someone’s steps sound on the stairs. It’s Barbara herself, slightly winded from the climb.

“Hello! Uh--where have the other two gone?”

“Um, they’re exploring those stone circles you discussed yesterday,” Regulus lies smoothly.

“And they left you here all alone? That’s a pity.”

He shrugs. There’s honestly nothing else he can say on the subject.

“Huh.” Barbara adjusts her scarf. “How would you like to go to a party with me then?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh! This took forever and proved longer than I anticipated. And more difficult to write.
> 
> I also have to include a **trigger warning** \- child sexual abuse (in this case it is an adolescent before the age of consent). You can skip that section if you stop reading at:
> 
> _"What do you mean by I started early?" Sirius asks, voice dropping._
> 
> And come back at:
> 
> _"He flinches and discards the stub with a grunt."_
> 
> It's not graphic and this subject will probably be revisited later on, but just in reference.

Sirius stretches out on the grass, joints popping and muscles protesting. He’s sore all over; firstly, from the athletic fucking he got from Remus the night before, secondly, from running through the woods tonight or, rather, last night, judging from the first shy rays of the sun cutting through the bare-branched trees.

He’s also bloody cold, which means that Moony, bare-assed next to him on the grass, must be freezing. He drags himself into a sitting position and looks around. This clearing doesn’t look at all like the one they started the night in, so--what are they odds that Remus’ clothes are within summoning distance? Time to find out. Wand out, he points it into the direction they might have come from and casts a hoarse, strained _Accio_.

For a second, nothing really happens, and he’s just enjoying the shivery, rugged ambiance of the Pomeranian forest, but then there’s a whoosh and a jumper and trousers tangled around a pair trainers make their way through the trees and smack Sirius in the face.

“Splendid.” He kneels on the ground and takes Remus by the shoulder to roll him onto his back. “Hey, Moony. It’s over. We need to get you dressed.”

Remus groans and swats at Sirius’ hand. At this point his whole body must be hurting to an almost unbearable degree, and Sirius always feels bad for shaking him from the relief of exhausted sleep.

“We need to get you dressed so you don’t get fucking pneumonia,” he says, tugging Remus up and leaning him expertly against his own shoulder. He’s done this too many times to count, but it’s still a challenge, dressing a grown man without jostling him too much in the process, and Remus hisses and returns to painful consciousness before long.

“What time is it?” he asks as Sirius maneuvers his head so that it is resting on his lap.

“Half past six.” Sirius glances at the watch. It’s also Halloween, which means his birthday is in four days. He’ll be twenty, jobless and homeless to boot. What an achievement, he’s a true prodigy.

“You know.” Remus clears his throat. It’s not very effective, as he still can barely get the words out. “The _Crucio_ wasn’t as horrible as you’d expect.”

“What?” Sirius scowls down at him, surprised by the sudden frankness and the recollection. Remus did not remember much after waking up at St Mungo’s. He also doesn’t talk about his trauma, ever, he just bottles it up and throws it back at Sirius in rare but terrifying moments of fury.

“When Bellatrix _Crucio_ ’ed me,” Remus ploughs on, eyes closed, “it was akin to really bad transformation pain. Only really sudden and all over. But the worst part was that for a second I believed--she made me change. That the Unforgivable somehow triggered the--the lycanthropy despite the phase of the moon.”

Sirius doesn’t really know what to say, so he just smoothes his palm across Remus’ chest, feeling his heart beating underneath. His mind is still offering him very canine-like thoughts, in this case monochrome images of bloody violence against Bellatrix.

“I would’ve killed them if that had happened,” Remus continues, in that same flat, exhausted tone. “I would’ve torn them to shreds.”

“And there would have been two fewer knobs in the world,” Sirius says. “Don’t worry about it now.”

“Did you ever get hit with the Cruciatus?” Remus’ eyes suddenly zero in on his downturned face.

“Uh, yeah. Once or twice.”

He doesn’t say anything else, but he doesn’t need to; Remus knows it must have been at home, otherwise he would have known about it.

“Come on.” Sirius pushes Remus into a sitting position, then hauls him to his feet and Apparates the two of them back to the townhouse. They pop onto the staircase with all their limbs intact, Remus doubling over with the shock of it, and Sirius fists his hands in Remus’ jumper to keep him upright. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I know Apparition sucks. But it’s just a few steps now.”

Remus sways drunkenly on his way to the door, heavier with each step, and when Sirius lifts his free hand to knock, the door opens. It’s Regulus.

“Come on in.” He’s dressed differently than when they left, in a white pressed shirt and black slacks. “I’ve brewed you tea.”

“Why are you up?” Sirius hauls Remus inside. Once they’re through the door, Regulus slips under Remus’ other arm to hold him up. “Let’s get him to bed. Look out for his shoulders, they always hurt the most.”

“Okay, okay. We’re alone, by the way. Barbara is staying at her boyfriend’s.”

Together, they easily walk Remus into the bedroom and lay him in the bed. As Sirius is pulling the duvet from underneath Remus to cover him, Regulus is just standing there looking at him, face drawn in pity, hands twisting together.

“Bring me the potions case,” Sirius huffs, “will you?”

“On it.” He darts out of the room. Sirius pulls off Remus’ sneakers and slips a pair of woollen socks onto his freezing feet instead. Regulus is right back. “There you are.”

“Thanks. Uh, it’s really cold in here, could you turn the heat up?”

“Sure. Let me cast a warming charm, it should hold until noon.”

Remus is dozing back off already, but Sirius lifts his head gently to pour the first dose into his mouth.

“Come on, you’re gonna feel better if you take these now. There you go. Good lad. Do you want anything else for now?”

“Water,” Remus creaks out and Regulus fetches a glass for him. “Thank you.”

Regulus is looking at him openly, like Sirius knows Moony hates when he’s like this, so he gives him a dismissive nod.

“Have you gotten the wards back up? I’ll be out in a minute. Ta.”

Regulus sighs but makes himself scarce, and Sirius smooths Remus’ hair away from his forehead. There’s just a handful of scratches on him today, from a scuffle with Padfoot near the stone circles, because while the woods were uninhabited, Moony managed to catch someone’s scent at the stones and Padfoot had to distract him. Afterwards, they ran their own circles around the ancient burial ground, huge, winding loops across the pine forest, scaring off local animals and snapping at each other’s heels.

“I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” he tells Remus, who is already asleep by the looks of it. He tucks him in and leaves, closing the door soundlessly behind him.

Regulus is sitting behind the table, with one sock foot on the kitchen bench and an arm propped on the knee in a decadent pose. The mugs are steaming, freshly made, and even Barbara’s tasteless tea is heavenly after the night Sirius has had.

“Why are you up, again?” he asks Regulus, who is now examining his fingernails. “Do we have anything to eat, by the way? I’m starving.”

“I was at a party. We have eggs and some bread, but I have to warn you that I can’t cook. This tea is the extent of my skills.”

“Oh, right.” He forgot, because it now seems utterly daft to him, not to be able to take care of oneself in such basic ways. “What party? Isn’t that dangerous?”

“More dangerous than staying here by myself?”

“Fair point.” Sirius hauls himself up and to the fridge. “So what about this party? Where did you go?”

“It was a get-together of Barbara’s university friends, at the student housing. They’re mostly history and archaeology students, Muggles all with the exception of Wojciech, who’s a half-blood.” Regulus is unusually animated and a little flushed. Sirius keeps sneaking glances at him over his shoulder as he’s scrambling the eggs. “Quite unfortunately, most of them don’t speak English at all, so I talked a lot to Barbara--she’s very interesting, by the way, make sure to ask her about her dissertation--and a bit to Wojciech, because he actually speaks some French, and when that didn’t suffice, we did, er, the next best thing, we switched to Latin.”

“What?” He throws his head back and gives a hearty laugh. “You nerds. Here I was proud of you that you went to a party and it turns out it was a party for _nerds_.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” Regulus says, offended. “You twat.”

“It’s a bookish--never you mind, actually.”

“That coming from a person who must have done a lot of extracurricular work to become an Animagus.”

“Maybe I’m just naturally talented.” Sirius shrugs and pours the eggs onto a pan.

“So am I, at some things, but they still take effort and time. Anyway, it was curious. To meet people so different from everyone I know. They were interested in me, too. Asked quite a lot of questions about Muggle music.”

“Pity I wasn’t there instead of you then.”

“I absolutely disappointed them with my lack of knowledge about Dawid Bowie.”

Regulus falls silent, as if mulling something over. Sirius is too tired to think of ways to continue this conversation, so he occupies himself with preparing breakfast, then plops down on the bench opposite Regulus. They haven’t eaten like this since they were children and as such banished to the children’s table by their parents, in a little room adjacent to the main dining room, constantly supervised by Kreacher who made sure they ate their veggies.

He shrugs off the memory and digs into his meal.

“How is he?” Regulus asks once he’s finished with his eggs.

“Remus? He’ll be all right.”

“Is it always like that?”

Sirius wants to snap at him and tell him it’s none of his business, but Regulus’ usually impassive face is full of concern.

“No, sometimes it’s worse,” he replies, frank. “The company of the dog helps to keep the wolf’s attention away from both people and himself. It helps channel his energy into--safer venues, like running or playing.”

“I’m sorry. Playing?”

“Yeah. The wolf--it’s like any other animal.” Sirius stuffs a piece of bread into his mouth. “There’s a--craving for prey, sure, but it can be distracted from it. I provide the distraction.”

“And you do this every full moon?”

“Like clockwork.” Sirius grins. He’s quite proud of his consistency and dependability, the one thing he’s managed to keep up in his life.

“That’s a huge commitment,” Regulus remarks and Sirius’ smile falters. They haven’t really discussed Remus and him in any terms before. The announcement that they would be taking Regulus to a shared flat, back after the cave incident, merited only a blank stare; Sirius was too absorbed by saving Regulus’ life to care about his attitude to Sirius’ love life.

“What, are you surprised that I can commit?” Sirius gets on the offensive.

“Not at all.” Regulus shakes his head. “Just--you know--”

Sirius doesn’t know. He remembers their goodbye at Grimmauld Place, after he was called _shame of their flesh_ the last time and _filthy deviant_ the first time, and was packing in an adrenaline-fueled rush, somewhat disbelieving that they would just let him go, and Regulus came into his room all pale and wide-eyed and asking Sirius to reconsider and see if it’s maybe just a phase. It felt like a kick to the ribs and Sirius had neither the empathy nor the presence of mind to comprehend that it was in fact a request to stay. He still regrets some of the things he said to Regulus then.

And later, when he was on the outs with Remus after the prank and spent most of his time alternatively feeling sorry for himself and devising more pathetic ways to apologise--he saw Regulus with that Hufflepuff boy, the Scot with a magnificent head of auburn hair. They were walking slowly, heads bowed close together, shoulders brushing, down the path leading behind greenhouse three. Sirius craned his neck to see and almost fell off of the barrell he was perched on, chainsmoking, but they soon disappeared behind the tall row of sunflowers, and when Regulus appeared again, he was alone, red in the face, and wiping his cheeks with his hands. Sirius jerked towards him, as if his body operated on different conditions than the rest of him, but then it clicked into place. He wasn’t surprised as much as worried about Regulus’ arsehole mates from Slytherin catching wind of it.

“What?” he asks in a low tone, meeting Regulus’ eyes.

“I think, uh, you’re a good fit, the two of you,” Regulus stammers out.

“Thanks, mate,” Sirius says, the mate at the end slipping out somewhat unexpectedly. It’s been surprisingly wholesome, this whole conversation, and he’d like not to focus on the suspicious curl of Regulus’ lip, the jealous flash of his eyes as he turns to look out the window. It’s a straight road into his mother’s repulsive paranoia. “Alright. I’ll be going to bed. I’m knackered. Mind cleaning this up?”

“I’ll do my best.”

Strained muscles protesting, he gets up and walks out, headed for the bedroom, but he stops just before the door to unlace and toe off his boots, because Moony always complains about the noise. When he slips inside in socked feet, it’s noticeably brighter than before and Remus is curled on his side with the duvet bundled up so that it blocks off the light. A curious warm feeling overcomes Sirius at the sight of Moony’s sleeping face, soft and seemingly unmarred in the dim light, his hands curled in loose fists just under his chin, his light brown hair curling at the temple. It’s not a stretch to believe someone else could fancy him too.

He kneels on the bed and slides under the covers, careful not to disturb Moony, and lies on his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling and its decorative moulding. It makes him think of ho--that wretched place on Grimmauld Place. For all its mismatched furnishing and decoration, this is a very nice place to live, close to the old market square, too, and while not at the level of his family’s wealth, of course, or even the Potters’, he insinuated from Barbara’s story, her level of education and her parents living abroad that they must be quite well-off in their own right. He wonders what they’re like in person: warm and hospitable and a little kooky like Effie and Monty, or serious and concerned like Remus’ parents, or chaotic and overbearing like Peter’s crowd of uncles, aunts and cousins.

When he asked his parents if they knew what it meant to go both ways--and followed it up with a few rude gestures that couldn’t have been misunderstood--his mother shrieked _you’ve cooked this up with your Mudblood friends to hurt me and your father!_ And he remembers turning on his heel, all cavalier, cool even, because his sexual awakening had somehow wrestled him completely out of his parents’ jurisdiction, and saying: _Not everything revolves around you, Mother_ \--a prophetic sentence that he will hear repeated at himself many times in the future. _You’re not the center of the universe, Sirius; believe it or not, but the world doesn’t revolve around you, Padfoot_. Back then, he followed it with a yelled _I’m exactly what you two made me, so think about that_ , to which his father responded with a snarled _I have not raised a_ \--watch out, there’s another loaded expression coming!-- _a sissy in my life, boy!_

 _It turns out he raised two of them_ , Sirius thinks with no small amount of vindication and turns onto his side, facing Remus’ back. There’s more to it, to the _sissy_ , but he can feel a heaviness settling in his gut that means it’s hurtful, so he steers clear of it, pushes the thought away, out of his mind, until he can no longer remember what he was thinking about before, and turns into Padfoot for good measure. Padfoot is not at all swayed by other people’s opinions of him, has a healthy, doggy level of self-esteem and always sleeps well.

He pushes his muzzle into Remus’ shoulder blade, heaves a sigh and goes to sleep.

An unspecified amount of time later, he’s woken up by James’ voice calling his name.

“Padfoot! You there? Can we check in?”

“Just--ugh--hold on a sec.” Sirius crawls out of bed, grabs the two-way mirror from the bedside table and pads to the kitchen barefoot. “Moony’s still out. What time is it?”

“Noon around here.” James is cheerful, bustling about his kitchen, judging from the background. “How was the full?”

“It was okay. No incidents. But so much running, I swear, I can hardly haul my body from one room to another.”

“Yeah, you’re not looking so hot, Pads. Might want to shower.”

Sirius glares at him, pushing a hand through his hair and coming up with a leaf.

“Undoubtedly. All right, let me find my fags and you can tell me what this is about, because I’m doubtful it’s about my hygiene.”

“I feel terrible about missing the last three moons.” James brings the mirror very close to his face to show his remorseful, myopic eyes. “We should be doing it together, you know, Marauder-like.”

“Don’t sweat it, we manage,” Sirius says, lighting up a cigarette, though he was less charitable about it three months ago, when he’d lost Moony and frantically searched for him for hours. “If the location is good, I can handle it alone.”

“How was the location?”

“So-so. Too close to a town. I’ll need to look into it. Anyway, how are you? How is the wife?”

“She’s in deep with the research about you-know-what,” James says in a low tone. “I hardly see her. She actually has some questions for your little brother, if you’ve got him at hand.”

“He’s sleeping off a night of partying, believe it or not.”

“Regulus? Partying?”

“I was just as astonished as you are. Flabbergasted, even.” He leans on the windowsill and blows the smoke outside. “But he’s getting on, somehow. Maybe I shouldn’t be all that surprised. Maybe he’s been this mad party animal the whole time, just rocking it out to, I don’t know, the Wizarding Top Ten at Malfoy’s.”

James chortles.

“Yeah. But Lily’s--Lily’s got this weird soft spot for him, and you know she’s never been wrong about anything ever, so she’s also probably not wrong about him.”

Sirius sighs and scratches his forehead with his thumb.

“I don’t doubt his intentions, Prongs. Most of the time. But there’s more to it, there’s always more, I look at him and I’m--I’m back there--I can’t let some things just go like that--”

James nods sagely, as if he’s not the one with the home where it’s always warm and nice and people are welcome and nobody’s ever doled out curses as punishment. Sirius breaks off as the wards at the door go down.

“I’ll get back to you.” He flicks the cigarette outside, puts the mirror down on the sill and creeps into the hallway, wand out. Barbara turns around from the coat hanger. “Oh. Hello.”

“Good afternoon! Sorry I’ve been gone so long. The party lasted well into the night.” She stifles a yawn. “Is Regulus--we walked him back and insisted we stay when I saw you weren’t back yet but he was adamant--”

“He’s sleeping. No, that’s perfectly reasonable. We don’t want to inconvenience you anymore than we do already--”

“I just realized I am not sure just how big this threat hanging over the three of you is.”

Sirius looks down with a cringe. His feet are bare and he’s in his pyjamas, which back at Grimmauld would be no outfit to meet a woman in, but he’s not there anymore, is he, so he just gives her a tight smile and gestures to the kitchen.

“After you.”

They sit at the opposite sides of the table, mirroring his earlier conversation with Regulus. Barbara looks serious, if a little worse for wear: there’s a set of ripe hickeys on her neck, which bring to mind the ones on his own throat that he’s forgotten to glamour in his haste to talk to James, though his hair is probably hiding those from sight.

He taps his fingers against the table and fixes Barbara with a look.

“The danger is real,” he says. “Distant, thanks to our relocation here. If it ever comes here, I can’t stress this enough, save yourself, Barbara. Grab Artur and Apparate to a safe location. Don’t worry about us, we can hold our own.”

“What or who should I be looking out for?” she asks, a strange glint in her eyes. Sirius doesn’t know her well enough to tell if it’s a game to her, like a war story from her grandparents’ time, or Gryffindor-like boldness.

“My cousin, her husband and his brother.” It sounds so innocuous put like that, like a family dispute where the worst they could do is squabble over an inheritance. “They’re trained killers and formidable duellists. They want to hunt Regulus down no matter the consequences.”

She nods slowly, eyes locked on his.

“How can I recognize them if I come across them by accident?”

“As much as it pains me to say, Bellatrix--my cousin--looks a lot like me, just a tad shorter, ten years older and, obviously, female. The Lestranges--the brothers--are tall, brown-haired, with these square jaws, kind of moronic-looking. They will be dressed in wizarding garb--expensive robes, dragonhide shoes, the works.”

“They’re Purebloods, too.”

“Yeah, they are.”

“I talked about the Pureblood culture with Regulus.” She leans back against the wall. “He told me your family goes back centuries, and that you have records of it, all the way back to medieval times. Patricians, nobles, academics. It’s awe-inspiring, in a way. Such history.”

“Only from the outside,” Sirius says, elbows propped on the table, fingers laced together. “Long-lasting doesn’t necessarily mean honorable or worthy of surviving, you know? Our family, it--it harbours hate and--and abuse--”

He breaks off; for one, it’s been a long, long time since he had to explain being a Black to anyone, and besides, he’d rather not spill his long and traumatic backstory to a stranger, no matter how kind and invested she is. When he looks up, she’s wearing that pitying expression, because she’s obviously smart and able to put things together, but before he can react in any meaningful way, Remus stands in the doorway.

“Hullo.” He’s wrapped in a jumper that covers the bruising on his arms, but the scratches on his face are clearly visible and Barbara picks up on them immediately.

“Remus! Is everything okay?”

“Er, um, I fell down a ravine--” he says just as Sirius pipes up with the same explanation: “He fell down a ravine yesterday!”

They feed her the tired lie about the Tricky Unnoticeable Ravine that sneaked up on Oblivious Remus and had him Tumble Down arse over tit, resulting in the Noticeable Light Scratches and Bruising. She buys it, but Sirius suspects it’s the last time she does. Remus then excuses himself and runs off to take a shower, the sneaky bastard, while Sirius has to weather several specific questions about the stone circles, and while he’s always despised Wormtail’s lengthy monologues about his work on henges, whatever he gleaned from them finally comes in handy.

When there’s a lull in the conversation, he gets up to put the kettle on; it’s strange to sit in the kitchen without anything to eat or drink. Turning back to the table, he catches Barbara looking at him. She averts her gaze, flustered.

“Do you mind waking up your brother?” She gets up from the table, messing with her hair. “I’d like to take you to our wizarding library. It’s going to be closed tomorrow for Sunday, so--”

“Sure, let me get him. When do you want to leave?”

“In an hour? Is that reasonable?”

“Sure, let me just check with Remus if he feels up for it.” He needs to wash and dry his hair before they leave, too, but his image would take a serious blow if anyone knew just how much time and effort it takes. “Should we make sandwiches or shall we get something on the way?”

“Let’s eat on the way. Okay?”

“Yeah, brilliant.”

Remus has left the bathroom door unlocked, so Sirius sneaks inside. Moony is in the shower, arms braced on the tiles, water streaming down his lanky body. There’s something about his proportions--the long, long legs, narrow hips, angular shoulders--that Sirius has always found attractive, entrancing even.

“Stop creeping on me,” Remus says, without turning around. The bite scar on his side is an angry red, weirdly distorted by Remus going up roughly thrice in size since he was bitten, but still recognizable as an imprint of a mouth full of sharp teeth.

“I’m not creeping, I’m gazing in adoration,” Sirius says.

“Sure.” Remus snorts and turns off the water. Sirius hands him his towel. “Did you want something?”

“Yeah.” Sirius tears his eyes away from the straight scar on his belly, courtesy of Bellatrix. “Barbara wants us to go to their super secret wizarding library before it closes for the weekend, but I suppose you’re not up for that?”

“I’m more than up for that, but my bloody body isn’t.” Remus sits heavily on the bathtub ledge. “That’s a pity. You’re not going to appreciate it as much as I would.”

“Surely not, but I’m also certain she’ll take you there some other time, if you express your willingness.”

“Sure. Thank you, Padfoot.”

“‘Do you want help with the ointment?”

“You should probably go before it becomes weird that we’re in here together.”

“I don’t care,” Sirius says and it’s true, though he’s not sure when that’s changed for him. Maybe it’s the distance from home, or maybe the new company. “Let me at least get your back, will you?”

Remus obediently presents his back for rubbing the ointment onto the scratches and bruises. His back is exquisite in this position, long and sloped, the bumps of his spine a pattern Sirius knows more intimately with his fingers than his eyes. He touches them now, and kisses Remus on the top of his shoulder, where there’s a tiny bony protrusion. Remus looks at him over his shoulder, mouth curving in a soft smile, and in a hot second Sirius loses all his motivation to go anywhere.

Barbara collects him and Regulus anyway, sleepy and rubbing their bloodshot eyes, and drives them out into the biting cold. Sirius zips up his jacket and pops the collar, but it doesn’t seem enough against the chill. Regulus’ face is hardly visible between his shoulders and the collar of his coat. Barbara ploughs on, untied scarf trailing behind her on the wind, evidently used to the local climate.

They get some delicious dumplings for dinner and take a hurried walk through the city center to the library. It is, apparently, located directly beneath the former royal castle of Wawel.

“Isn’t this a rather conspicuous place to locate a secret magical library in?” Regulus asks, head thrown back to admire the castle hill. It’s quite remarkable, with the church towers shooting up into the darkening sky and the lazy, wide river meandering to the side.

“Ah, that’s exactly why it was chosen.” Barbara leads them towards the river rather than the entrance to the castle. “The library used to be housed there for centuries. When the war came. it was evacuated and stored in a basement somewhere, and then, when everybody’s mostly forgotten about it, it was brought back here. Hiding in plain sight. It’s warded and protected, of course, so Muggles will not just stumble upon it.”

“Is that a dragon?” Regulus points to a dark, fearsome statue facing the river.

“It is! It’s the Wawel dragon,” Barbara says, coming up to the statue, Regulus and Sirius trailing behind her like children. “The Muggles think it’s a legend, but there used to be a dragon living in this cave before this castle was built. They drove it out, because it kept getting into the food stores through the cave system--it goes all the way up into the castle. There’s a whole story around a shoemaker named Skuba who fed the dragon a calf fed with sulphur that caused the poor thing to drink so much water it died. I suppose there must be some truth to the story but I doubt it was a shoemaker that lured out the dragon. It was most probably a witch or a wizard.”

There’s a crackling sound and all of a sudden the dragon breathes fire.

“Bloody hell,” Sirius breathes. “Is it supposed to be doing that?”

“Yes, it’s a simple mechanism--it’s just gas and a spark.” Barbara shrugs. “Did it scare you?”

Regulus turns to Sirius with a smirk.

“Of course not,” Sirius scoffs. “I was just surprised, is all.”

“All right.” Barbara’s eyebrows are nearing her hairline. “Let’s go inside.”

She leads them to a gate with a lock that is easily charmed open and then into a dark cavern. Their footsteps echo loudly. There’s water dripping somewhere, echoing. Sirius feels a shiver run down his spine and turns around.

“Reg?”

Regulus is standing at the entrance, just outside of the gate. His eyes are downcast, face white in the sparse ambient light.

“You alright?”

“Just--give me a second.”

Sirius sighs impatiently, looks around at the dark, dripping walls, then at his brother’s stiff posture and then, finally, makes the connection.

“Oi--Regulus.” He strides up to Regulus and leans down to peer into his face. “This is not the same cave, not by a long shot. For one, there’s no lake inside, and for another, there’s a funny-looking dragon outside. There’s just going to be loads of musty books--”

Regulus pushes him away with a hand to his chest.

“Don’t make fun of me, Sirius.”

“I’m not, you wanker. I--I get why this can be scary to you.” That fucking cave was one of the most horrible places he’s ever seen. “Come on, stay close to me.”

Regulus moves forward reluctantly, Sirius flanking him at a slight distance. Barbara is waiting for them at the entrance to a dark corridor, tapping her foot against the floor.

“Are you afraid of caves?” she asks in a low voice. “We’ll cast some light in a moment, let’s just leave the main cavern before tourists wander in.”

“It’s alright.” Sirius lets Regulus pass first and walks in after him, hands in his pockets, elbows akimbo, making his body into a shield like he sometimes does for Remus.

Barbara leads them down a long corridor, at the end of which there’s a blank wall. A series of wards and a muttered password reveals a fancy, carved wood door. Behind it, there’s a library that could put every British collection to shame, with the exception of the one in Oxford, perhaps, but Sirius has never seen it himself. There are stacks so tall their tops are shrouded in darkness, possibly reaching the dome of the cavern, a whole wall of cubbies filled with scrolls and parchment pieces, rows of glass showcases housing particularly valuable and ancient specimens, all of it interspersed by haphazardly placed settees, armchairs and chairs from every possible time period that came to mind, from medieval faldstools, through ornate Louis XVI furniture, to elegant art deco chairs. While the cavern they’re in is immense, the collection seems to fill the whole of it.

Sirius looks around in awe, but Regulus is truly dumbfounded: eyes glazed over, jaw slack, just pointing mutely here and there.

“This is impressive,” Sirius says to Barbara, who nods with unconcealed pride.

“It’s the jewel in our crown. All right, let me clear you with the librarian and I can show you around. _Panie Bonifacy?_ ” As soon she utters the name, there’s a crack and an unbelievably ancient house elf pops into being in front of them. “ _Dzień dobry. Przyprowadziłam swoich kolegów z Anglii, o których wspominałam. Chciałabym ich oprowadzić, bo będziemy wspólnie prowadzić badania. To Regulus i Syriusz Black_.”

The elf looks them up and down suspiciously and follows up with a question that Barbara answers with patience and reverence. Sirius exchanges looks with Regulus. He’s never seen house elves outside a home or the kitchens at Hogwarts, much less elves dressed in robes and a nightcap with a top so long it trails behind them on the floor.

“ _Niech wejdą,_ ” the elf says finally, his goggling eyes narrowing slightly. “ _Ale mam na nich oko._ ”

“ _Dziękuję, panie Bonifacy._ ”* Barbara gives him a nod and herds Sirius and Regulus away, in the direction of the tallest stacks. “He harbours a deep-seated distrust towards Pureblooded wizards. I suppose it’s because of your habit of keeping elves as indentured servants.”

Regulus opens his mouth, as if to say something, but reconsiders and snaps it shut a second later.

“Might be,” Sirius says vaguely. “Do all elves here work in institutions and offices?”

“I wouldn’t say Bonifacy works here. He’s more of a keeper of this place. His family has been in charge of it for hundreds of years.” She rounds a corner and gestures with her hand. “So this, here, is the Theory of Magic section. History of Magic is over there, definitely of the most interest to us, along with Enchanted Items and Locations. Advanced Arts is over there--also potentially interesting. I’ve only started in on medieval times here--”

Regulus stumbles in his haste to get to the books. Sirius cringes, since he finds it hard to understand most of the titles on the shelves he’s passing.

Barbara stops suddenly, framed by the atmospheric light of candelabra.

“You can read Latin, right?” she asks, glancing from Regulus to Sirius. “What about Greek?”

“Latin and Greek both,” Regulus says, insufferably smug, turning a book in a gilded leather cover in his hands. “I can also read some Gaelic and Old Icelandic, but I’m no expert.”

“I’m a bit rusty,” Sirius admits. “I’m more of a hands-on bloke, if you know what I mean. Remus is an amazing researcher, though, and he’d go mad to be able to get his hands on some of the publications here.”

“What was your major again? Ancient magical sites?”

“Oh, I don’t have any college-level education. I work in household item enchantment,” he replies, letting some of his disappointment with the mundanity of his career seep into his voice. “That’s mostly charming pots to work, but sometimes it’s help, my bicycle is trying to kill me.”

“That’s fascinating!” To his surprise, Barbara’s eyes light up. “I’d like to pick your brains on that subject sometime. For now, let’s perhaps see if we can find any new leads on this mirror of ours.”

“How do you want to do it?” Regulus pipes in. “Shall we look for sources here and crosscheck them against the university library?”

“Yes, that sounds right.”

It’s far from right for Sirius, who is groggy as it is from his all-nighter, but at least Regulus can save the honour of British magical education in Barbara’s eyes. When they both notice that Sirius is mostly useless, picking up books at random and blinking at them with limited comprehension, they send him away to procure some hot tea. He finds Mr Bonifacy and works his charm on him until he’s pointed at a designated area for hot beverages in a very dark, cramped corner, and as the tea is steeping he imagines Bellatrix and the two Lestrange pillocks waltzing in here, wands in hand, robes billowing. What would he do then, exactly? He’s got all of these fantasies of doing away with Bella, but he’s not sure if they’re enough to fuel any of the potentially lethal spells, much less an actual _Avada_. As for their little team, they have set up a rendez-vous plan, but it’s put-together and untested as of yet. Really, Moody would have had their arses if he knew just how lazy they got out here.

Somewhat disquieted, he walks back in between the stacks. Regulus and Barbara have relocated to a pair of rickety armchairs and a table that they have already covered with their research and are so engrossed in whatever they’re discussing they haven’t even noticed Sirius, so he just watches them silently rather than disturb them. Barbara is cute, with that dark blonde wave of hair she’s constantly flicking out of her eyes and her pretty, melancholic face; if she had attended school with them, and he hadn’t been inescapably and utterly head over heels for Moony, he would have probably tried to pull her and it probably wouldn’t have been unwanted.

Regulus is--a painful reminder, still. His hair is straighter than Sirius’, falling down to his jaw in an even sheet, eyes an icy blue, like their father’s, but his diamond-shaped face, the widow’s peak on his forehead, the cut of his mouth is all their mother. It’s impossible not to think of her when looking at Regulus. What’s she up to nowadays? Wailing about her two wretches of sons? Serves her right.

He clears his throat and, when they both startle out of their research-induced trance, gives them an affable smile.

“Sorry. The tea is ready, but you can’t drink it here.”

“Obviously,” Barbara says and Regulus tacks on, “Of course, the books.”

Sirius goes out to smoke thrice and Mr Bonifacy gives them innumerable admonishing looks before they leave for the night, burdened with a few tomes that have been deemed safe enough to loan and a handful of hurriedly made notes.

Remus is up when they come in, wand at the ready.

“Good to see you all. I was growing paranoid all by myself.”

“We’ve brought you food for thought and some dumplings for sustenance.” Sirius dumps the books on the dinner table and they spend the remainder of the evening around it, communally reading and discussing their sources, which Sirius deems the only enjoyable way of conducting research.

They don’t find anything, of course; it takes them the better part of the week to even stumble upon a mention of the artefact. Barbara goes to university Monday to Friday, leaving them alone in the flat until late afternoon, Remus and Regulus read, take notes and translate, obsessively, while Sirius makes sure they don’t starve, die of thirst or go crazy with lack of entertainment. He’s growing quite proficient in his ability to procure groceries in the shortage economy they’ve found themselves in and becoming incredibly popular with Barbara’s friends what with the rolls of British Muggle notes that have a considerably bigger spending power here than in London. At least it’s a way to pay Barbara back for their upkeep and the Death Eater threat they’ve dragged into her peaceful academic life.

He does research too, but mostly into the theory of it--a divinating mirror is not something he’s ever heard about in his professional career, short as it is, or practical experience, both growing up in a house full of enchanted objects and attending a school riddled with magic. Divination is not his strong side, never has been, and he feels the need to understand the theory of it, at least on a high level, is they are to use and trust this item.

He checks in regularly with James to find out what’s up on the Isles, and usually it’s not spectacularly good news. They’re away from all of it here in Cracow, deceptively safe, and talking to James helps him not to lose the feeling for the gravity of the situation, the need for cautiousness, abundant wards, escape plans that he’s drilling into all of the inhabitants of the flat. After their fateful conversation in the kitchen, Barbara hasn’t asked him openly about the danger, but with every safety measure Sirius introduces her comprehension of their situation seems to grow. Artur is also slowly growing friendlier and more welcoming, although the language barrier is limiting their interactions to silent smokes and drinks, though Sirius eventually discovers they share a love for Queen, and their repertoire is broadened to include appreciative, silent record listening sessions.

Remus is, well, his melancholic, dry-witted Moony, with a dash of homesickness added into the mix. Sirius suspects it’s not their lousy London flat he’s missing but their way of life, which until a month ago seemed a given: snogging on the sofa, long evenings in bed, fucking in the kitchen if it struck their fancy. But there seems more to it: while with Barbara Remus is his docile, amicable public persona, with Sirius he’s short-tempered and cagey, unwilling to discuss anything of the more personal nature after his terrifying full moon admission about the Cruciatus. They have a few rows behind an industrial-strength silencing charm, which result in Sirius going around bitterly angry and sleeping on the furthest part of the bed. It never fails to amaze him just how fragile and slippery it is, what they’ve got, how quickly they can go from making eyes at each other to being at each other’s throats. The isolation surely isn’t helping, but Sirius feels like there’s something more to it; something in the form of a five-foot-seven Slytherin brat with a smug fucking face and a penchant for showing off his DADA knowledge.

He’s not feeling jealous, not at all; his jealousy brought on catastrophic consequences in the past, even going as far as Moony breaking up with him for two horrible weeks in their seventh year. Why would he be jealous? Both his brother and Moony have a right to have relationships outside the one with him. They used to be reluctant acquaintances in school, via Sirius and their shared prefecture, and then, apparently, they met again through Dumbledore’s schemes, ones that Sirius were not included in, for some reason (he knows what reason, but he doesn’t want to touch upon it too often in order not to get needlessly pissed off). Remus ran him through their encounters on Hirta and the Isle of Dogs, and while Sirius doesn’t have a reason to suspect Moony is withholding anything, he considers both relations lacking if you take into account Regulus’ attitude towards Remus. They’ve been positively chummy ever since Moony pulled Reg out of water--Sirius was simultaneously pushing him out by his arse--in that ice cold fucking cave. Sirius would die for his daft brother, sure, which is why he dove into an Inferi-infested lake for him, but it was Remus who was allowed to wrap Regulus in a coat when they were getting out of there and who could touch him without getting a flinch or a wand pointed in his face in the first hours after, before Pomfrey subjugated him with Dreamless Sleep potion.

He thinks about it when eating breakfast with everyone, glancing at Moony’s inscrutable face, he wonders about it as he’s waiting in the line to get some loo rolls, he suddenly remembers it when Remus is tossing him off under the shower, Reg’s toiletries on the sink visible just above the jut of Remus’ shoulder, he finally contemplates it when they’re up to their elbows in medieval Polish chronicles written in barely understandable bastardized Latin.

“Oh, Merlin,” Remus exclaims, reverting to a ramrod straight position from his slump in the chair. “I’ve got it, I’ve got something, there it is!”

Sirius is shaken out of his reverie as they all huddle over a paragraph that Remus is hastily translating:

“The item--the particular item--is akin to a mirror--you can see your future--wait, this is plural, I think--futures then? You can see your futures in. It was--presented, I guess, or demonstrated maybe? At a gathering--at the merchant--Wojciechowski’s. Uh--what’s this--”

“It’s the dimensions, I think,” Regulus supplies, squinting at the page. “I’m not good at the old-fashioned measures though, what was an elbow again?”

“Anywhere from twenty-two to twenty six inches, depending on the region and period,” Barbara supplies. “That’s probably the height--with the width being about half of it. That’s a common mirror size, I’d say.”

“What else does it say?” Sirius asks, looking over Remus’ shoulder.

“That the merchant acquired it from a rabbi that no longer wanted it because--uh--it distracted him? From the present, yeah, it distracted it from what was going on now in his life. Back to the presentation, I guess, at first it didn’t work because--of the person holding it? They had to bring in someone else--a boy--oh, bloody hell--”

“Oh good Merlin,” Regulus exclaims, backing away from the book, hand to his face.

“What is it?” Sirius zeroes in on the paragraph in question. “Oh, fucking hell. I’m not fluent in Latin, but I’m fairly sure that this means that only a virgin can look into the mirror and see the future. Right? _Virgo_?”

“That’s how it translates,” Barbara says, “and in medieval times, in the sphere of influence of the Catholic Church--well, it meant an unwed, chaste and abstinent person.”

“I can’t believe it,” Sirius manages between bouts of laughter. “No, wait, I actually can. These things are always tricky somehow, and this one can only be handled by a _virgin_ \--”

“That’s quite a surprise,” Remus says, with that wry smile that suggests that he does find this ridiculous but will pretend like he doesn’t. “It begs the question--say that we find this item--could anyone of us even handle it?”

There’s a beat as they all look at one another, Sirius in good-natured curiosity, Remus with a slight cringe, Regulus red in the face, Barbara with a powerful frown.

“We can’t be sure that this is actually a requirement,” she amends. “Virginity--as a concept has changed throughout time, and Christianity had a stricter outlook on the subject, while in Greco-Roman times _virgin_ could also mean _unwed_ , so how can we say what exactly--”

“There’s also no agreement on what actually constitutes the loss of virginity,” Remus adds. “Right?”

“Well, I’m out, however you look at it.” Sirius grins and puts his palms up. “I’ve done it all.”

“You have?” Remus’ eyebrows lift.

“Yeah.” Sirius shoots him a surprised look. “You?”

Remus shrugs.

“I’m not sure if it counts, as a matter of fact.” He shoots a quick glance at Barbara. “Er, like Barbara mentioned, there are differing views on it--”

“Exactly,” Barbara agrees quickly, “so, take Artur and me for example, we haven’t gotten married, but, um, I don’t think the medieval Mr Wojciechowski here would call me a virgin.”

“What about you, Reg?” Sirius rounds on Regulus, who is still blushing furiously.

“Padfoot--” Remus intervenes, but this is too good of an occasion to let it pass.

“Now come on, you can tell us. This is in the interest of our mission, of course--”

“I think I would pass muster, Sirius,” Regulus grits out.

“Seriously?” Sirius roars with laughter and Remus swats him with a roll of notes. “Ouch, what is your problem!”

“He’s eighteen, Padfoot, it’s perfectly normal--”

“Absolutely,” Barbara says, voice soft but a little strained. “And besides, there’s no specific age to--er, initiate--”

“Oh, please, for the love of Merlin.” Regulus springs to his feet and storms off, and Sirius finds Remus glaring at him accusingly.

“What, it’s just some good-natured fun--”

“No, it wasn’t, and you know it. This is a sensitive topic and, as his brother, you should know better than this.”

Sirius opens his mouth to argue but the stern set of Remus’ mouth suggests it’s moot. He deflates, claps his thighs in a gesture of self-encouragement and gets up.

“I’ll go to talk to him. Sorry for the drama, Barbara.”

“You should probably get used to the drama,” he hears Moony say as he walks out into the dark hall. Barbara responds with a laugh and something he can’t hear properly. His foot is tapping against the floor in annoyance, but he wills himself calm, plasters a smile onto his face and enters the kitchen.

Regulus is at the stove, putting the kettle on. He glowers at Sirius.

“Hey.” Sirius sits down at the kitchen bench, legs loosely apart, hands in pockets. “So, if I said anything that--um--might have offended you, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

“Oh you didn’t?” Regulus rounds on him, voice rising an octave, kettle forgotten. “So you’re saying you didn’t mean to embarrass me in front of Remus and Barbara then?”

“I didn’t think you’d take this so personally,” Sirius replies, which, he realizes just as the words leave his mouth, might not be the smartest thing to say.

Regulus gives a bitter little laugh.

“Sure you wouldn’t. How could I expect anything else from someone like you.”

“Excuse me?” Sirius feels his hackles rise. “Someone like _me_ , your older brother who doesn’t mean you any harm and has turned his life around to keep you safe?”

“No, Sirius, someone with your _reputation_ ,” Regulus says with a sneer. “One did not have to be in Gryffindor to know exactly what you got up to. Did you sleep with the whole school or just everyone-but-the-Slytherins?”

“What the fuck are you talking about? That’s just gossip and--and a whole lot of daft exaggeration.” That twit McKinnon started the rumour mill about Sirius’ slaggy ways after they’d broken up but before she realised her main problem with Sirius was his gender. “And even if it wasn’t--what’s that to you? Do you have a problem with--with my--” He stumbles upon the word, but pushes through, refuses to feel shame in front of his brother all of people. “With my being bisexual?”

“No, I--” Regulus puts his hands up in defensive gesture. “Why would I, no, absolutely not, Sirius, you can trust me on that. It’s just that--well, you started quite early, and here you are poking fun at me for not--”

“What do you mean by _I started early_?” Sirius asks, voice dropping. The steam he was gaining has mostly dispersed into a strange agitation after officially coming out to Regulus, and now was transforming into curiosity. “I was sixteen when I started seeing Marlene. And the others. Everyone else was doing it too--”

He breaks off, suddenly, in dawning recognition of what Regulus must have meant. It’s so hazy and disjointed he can hardly recall it, but it’s slowly seeping out of his buried memories, like a cloud of poisonous gas.

“You don’t remember?” Regulus says. “I was eleven, I think, so you must have been, what, thirteen? It was in that French place--”

“Yeah, Le Dramont, where we saw the shark in the sea.” The memory is slowing taking form. It was in the summer, July, middle of their family holidays. Bellatrix’ lipstick left traces on his clavicle. It was the colour of red wine and very difficult to get out of skin, probably charmed to last, and he scrubbed at himself for a long time in the upstairs bathroom. “You--you saw us--”

“I barged in because I wanted you to play with me,” Regulus says, mercilessly correct in his recollection. “And I saw her getting up and leaving. Oh, and she threw a stinging hex at me and said I couldn’t have seen anything what with all the crying.”

Sirius feels a chill run down his spine. Yeah, now that Regulus said it, he remembers it just fine, but an hour ago he would have sworn it had never happened, or that he imagined it in some fucked up fever dream. Bellatrix straightening her dress, putting on her shoes. She always wore heels, adding to her already impressive height. How she towered over him at thirteen--almost fourteen.

Regulus frowns, as if stumbling upon a particularly difficult passage in one of his books, and his eyes suddenly grow huge.

“Sirius--” he says, coming closer to the table.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Sirius says, waving his hand, but his stomach is doing a funny twist, and his spine is weirdly rigid. “I just--kind of forgot all about it, do you know?”

“Oh, hell.” Regulus puts his face in his hands. “I’m so sorry, Sirius, it just dawned on me what it--what she--now that we--I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He draws a shaky breath and exhales as if it was smoke. Oh, fags, that’s a brilliant idea, but before he can get his pack from the hall the kettle starts whistling. “Let me get that, Reg.”

As he reaches for the mugs, he sees Moony standing in the doorway. His face is all scrunched up, not just the forehead and the eyebrows, but the nose too, as if in horror and revulsion.

“Er, I’ve come to check in on you,” he says, adapting a more neutral expression, but Sirius is not looking at him anymore anyway, preferring to concentrate on the tea. “I wanted to see if you hadn’t started throwing things.”

“Well, we’re okay, as you can see.” Sirius turns with two mugs in outstretched hands and places them on the table, veering around Regulus, who is still dead in his tracks in the middle of the kitchen. “So no need.”

Remus takes a step forward and closes the door with his foot, shoulders squared as if he is getting ready to duel. Sirius sits down on the kitchen bench and pats his pockets seeking cigarettes, but finding none.

“I’m sorry for eavesdropping,” Remus continues, looking intently at Sirius. “But I heard your conversation and--Sirius--we should talk about this. Did she--Bellatrix--did she assault you?”

“No,” Sirius snorts. “I was a little young, true, but I was a willing participant. I mean, it’s not like I ran away or fought or anything.”

“Sirius, you were thirteen.” Remus pulls out a chair and sits opposite of Sirius. “That’s below the age of consent, so--you were too young to make a decision like that. She shouldn’t have--oh, Jesus Christ, this is so wrong in so many ways.”

“Moony.” Sirius says reassuringly, looking over Remus’ left shoulder. “It’s in the past. It was what, seven years ago? It’s not like I was hurt, it was fine, I’m fine.”

“You weren’t fine, Sirius,” Regulus says suddenly, the traitor, coming to sit next to Sirius on the bench. “You weren’t fine, not for a long time. I remember.”

“It was before fourth year?” Remus looks to Regulus for confirmation. “Our fourth, yeah. Oh, Padfoot, you were--you came back from the holidays so angry and _unhappy_ and we knew it had to do with your family but we had no idea--I’m so sorry about this.”

“There’s no need,” Sirius snaps and gets up. “Now excuse me.”

He jerks the door open, stomps into the hall, grabs his jacket off the hook and gets out, downstairs, outside. His breath is coming in pants, as if he’s just run two miles or gotten the scare of his life, tough to say, so he stuffs a cigarette into his mouth to calm himself. There are people walking by, glancing at him indifferently, busy with their lives, completely oblivious to all their family drama and the trauma Sirius will now need to bury down deep again, which is not going to be easy seeing as right now he can’t believe he ever forgot. But he didn’t really; he’s never considered Marlene to be his first.

_Let me show you something, Sirius. It’s for big boys though, not sissies like you._

He flinches and discards the stub with a grunt. It falls to the ground, still smouldering, and Sirius grounds it down with his heel, then walks back upstairs. If he stays outside too long, they’ll think something is wrong with him, and he doesn’t want that in the least.

There are voices in the kitchen, so he heads for the bedroom, making enough noise for them to realise he’s back. It’s dark in the room, but he doesn’t turn on the light, just sits down on the edge of the bed in the dark. He’s off-center, he’s flailing, he’s a man down. He should probably call James but James will want to know what’s wrong and Sirius can’t take pity from James.

He presses his palms to his chest, feeling his pectorals, his abdominal muscles, twitching and tensing under his hands. No longer thirteen there, or in the shoulders, or thighs. He’s a grown man, an accomplished duellist, an wild-card Animagus, a proficient curse-breaker. He could take her on now. Nobody should be able to make him afraid.

There’s the sound of steps in the hall and a soft creak as the doors open.

“Sirius?” It’s Remus, his voice studiously calm and reassuring. “There you are.”

Remus crosses the room in three long strides and sits down next to Sirius. Their shoulders are brushing. Sirius turns his head to look at him, but in the dark his Moony is just a silhouette, the shape of a familiar person.

“If you ever want to talk about this, just let me know,” Remus says.

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Sirius snorts. There’s now a flame alight in his chest that wasn’t there just a second before. “I guess we won’t be fucking anytime soon. You can’t know for sure I’m not damaged somehow. Maybe that’s why I like what I like.”

Remus’ breath hitches but he tries to cover it up with a long exhale.

“That’s not at all what I think,” he says and bumps Sirius’ shoulder with his own. “There’s nothing wrong with what you like and how you are in bed or outside of it. But do tell me if I ever do anything that makes you uncomfortable in any way. All right?”

“I guess.” He’d rather not complicate their spontaneous, passionate love life with fucking talking, but that’s apparently not an option anymore. It’s as if Bellatrix could destroy anything she’s ever laid hands on. “Moony.”

“Hm?” Remus turns to him and Sirius lays his head on Remus’ shoulder, and doesn’t say anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Translation of the Polish dialogue:
> 
> “Good afternoon. These are my English colleagues I’ve mentioned to you before. I’d like to give them a tour of the library, since we will be conducting research together. They’re Regulus and Sirius Black.”
> 
> “They may come in. But I will keep an eye on them.”
> 
> “Thank you, Mr Bonifacy.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I'm so slow. The truth is our DnD campaign is sapping most of my free time. I'm basically dividing my evenings between prepping that as the DM and writing this, so as you can see these long chapters take a loooong time. Sorry and huge thanks to anyone who is reading, leaving kudos and comments!
> 
> Also thanks to my parents, who have been my inspiration for some of the characters here, especially my Mum, who answers all of my late night texts about the availability of textiles and record players in the late 70s without any needless questioning.
> 
> No warnings for this one except for some ~drama and the continued discussion of the child abuse TW from the previous chapter.

“Moony,” Sirius says in that sing-song tone of his that never bodes well. His face is frozen in a tight, grimace-like smile. “It’s in the past. It was what, seven years ago? It’s not like I was hurt, it was fine, I’m fine.”

Regulus has a vivid flashback to Sirius locking himself in their bathroom for hours on end. Back then, he was mostly annoyed that Sirius was making him use the one on the third floor, which housed a family of terrifyingly big spiders that always came out in the most unfortunate moments, but even so, he did notice Sirius was going through something. He didn’t understand it: for a queer child a woman alone in your room did not bear any extra meaning, he was too small to have heard any locker room talk yet, and he was definitely too young to understand the issues around coercion and consent and assault.

“You weren’t fine, Sirius,” he says softly and cautiously sits down next to Sirius, who glares at him in a frightening but somehow dear rendition of their mother’s scowl. “You weren’t fine, not for a long time. I remember.”

“It was before fourth year?” Remus directs this question at Regulus. “Our fourth, yeah. Oh, Padfoot, you were--you came back from the holidays so angry and _unhappy_ and we knew it had to do with your family but we had no idea--I’m so sorry about this.”

Regulus immediately knows that they’ve approached this from the wrong direction. Sirius hates pity and fragility, he wants a manly pat on the back, them pretending not to have heard or understood.

“There’s no need,” Sirius snaps and gets up. “Now excuse me.”

He storms out and they’re left alone in the kitchen, listening to the door slamming in the distance. Remus sighs and sits down on the bench next to Regulus.

“I’ve heard so much about your family,” he says. “And I’m sorry to say that it’s never anything good. But this is--so much worse than I ever expected. I know it’s your family that we’re--”

“I know what it is, Lupin.” There’s a lump in his throat. Lupin notices and throws him a quick glance. “I just--I’ve never known anything else.”

“Jesus.” Lupin puts his head in his hands, then suddenly starts and looks at Regulus. “And you--has she ever--you can choose not to say, of course--”

“No.” He shakes his head, throat tight. “Bellatrix has always had it out for Sirius. Even when we were children, even before he was sorted into Gryffindor. And Sirius--” This goes against everything he was ever taught about their family: never to discuss them with outsiders, never to bring up the bad things, the dark things. “It’s as if he’d work hard to keep her focused on him. I didn’t understand it back then, I thought it was just his troublemaking. But now--maybe he did it on purpose. And then he left. For you.”

He doesn’t mean it as in _for you, Remus Lupin_ , at least not at first, but that’s the way it comes out. Or maybe he does mean it, because it’s certainly been on his mind recently. Lupin’s eyes flash and Regulus is reminded of that moment in the hallway, before the full moon, when it occurred to him that there were ways in which Lupin differed from them after all.

“He did not leave for me specifically,” Lupin says in a low tone. “Nor for James or Peter for that matter. There were a lot of reasons there, but you’d best discuss them with Sirius himself. And I should check on him.”

When he says that, the front door creaks and the wards go back up. Lupin stands up and dusts off his jeans, his face tight, inscrutable.

“Do you mind checking in on Barbara?”

“Not at all,” Regulus lies.

“We’ll have to continue tomorrow, I suppose.” Remus looks older than his years, hunched over with his hands on his hips, and there’s something in him that elicits a reaction of regret and guilt in Regulus, not unlike a disappointed professor. “Good night, Regulus.”

This weight is his to bear now: he’s made a slag out of his abused brother. Shame burning deep in his chest, Regulus down the rest of his tea and goes back to the living room, where Barbara is calmly transcribing the passage they’ve found.

“Barbara,” he says, pushing forward purely on the good manners they’ve forced into him at home. “My apologies for all the commotion. I can see that you’ve done most of the work already.”

“It could suffer a thorough check from you or Remus.” Barbara puts the pen down and looks up at him with a soft smile. “And no offense taken. These are sensitive matters.”

“Yes, well. That’s not reason enough for some of the comments or outbursts you had to witness.”

She shakes her head.

“You have this way of--slipping into a kind of learned politeness that seems very different from who you are. I guess that’s the patrician upbringing in you, isn’t it?”

Regulus is stunned for a second. He had no idea he was this transparent, or perhaps he was so used to everyone hiding behind such a facade that he assumed it was the default.

“Yes, yes it is,” he admits. It’s easier to breathe once you drop the forced straight posture, the schooled neutral expression, and he’s grateful to Barbara for allowing him that. “It’s been--forced into us since a very early age. A way to endure social situations you desperately do not want to be in but that you cannot slip away from.”

“Oh, I get that. I usually just smile and sit there like an ornament. It’s silly.”

“It’s not. I do the same thing, just without the smile. Sirius says I look snobby.”

She’s still looking at him with that kind expression and he thinks _what’s the worst that can happen if I drop something off my chest to a person we will eventually say goodbye to and never see again_?

“I--Sirius--extramarital relationships were a taboo for our family. The topic of sex in its entirety, actually.” He laughs out of embarrassment, feeling the flush creeping out of his collar. “And now we’re--we’re adults and have to figure it out ourselves, somehow, and it doesn’t help that our parents were very strict, about this and every other facet of our life, and Sirius had an even harder time adhering to the rules than I did.” He breaks off to take a breath. “And--he was so different from what they must have imagined their son to be, and I always tried so hard to fulfill those expectations, because I’ve always wanted to fit in, do you understand? I just don’t like to be put in a place where I have to argue for myself, most of the time it doesn’t make sense to kick up a fuss because someone asks you to do something--a little thing--like wearing the right tie or--”

Barbara nods in commiseration. Regulus notices, in growing horror, that her eyes are glazed with tears.

“I’m sorry,” she says, wiping at the corner of one eye. “I get emotional easily when someone else is. And I know what you’re saying, about being conformist when your parents are involved. I--maybe our parents aren’t so different after all.”

That’s a laughable remark to Regulus, at least at first, and then suddenly it isn't. He can almost feel his mindset switch. _This is why they don’t want us hanging out with Muggleborns and Muggles_ , he thinks, crystal-clear and breath-taking as epiphanies usually are.

“So, do you have any other siblings?” Barbara asks.

“No, it’s just Sirius and I.”

“At least it’s the two of you. I’m an only child.”

“But you’ve got Artur and your friends. They seem like a good sort.”

“They are! They are amazing. They’ve been asking about you, actually.” Barbara latches onto a different subject with obvious relief. “We rarely get guests from behind the Iron Curtain and you’ve made quite an impression on them. They wanted me to invite you to the next party.”

“Really?” Regulus gapes at her. “Er, if that’s okay, I would really like to come. I had a brilliant time at the last one.”

Oh, the gasps this would elicit at the Slytherin dinner table: consorting with Muggles and half-bloods, enjoying it, _learning_ from it. A terrible travesty, the best part of which was that none of Barbara’s friends recognized him as he introduced himself, because why would they, to them the surname _Black_ was just foreign. Wojciech pointed a finger at him and said _Paint it Black?_ and Regulus was terribly confused until it was explained to him that it’s the title of a famous Rolling Stones song. He recalled the band vaguely from Sirius’ lengthy and exasperated monologue called _the introduction to rock’n’roll_ , and only because he considered the name _Rolling Stones_ ridiculous, but when Barbara’s friends played it for him from a scary-looking device called the _magnetophone_ , he was thrilled. There was power in that song, hidden somewhere in between the beat and the unrepentant hoarse vocals.

“We’re getting together this weekend,” Barbara says, breaking him out of his reverie. She frowns. “I hope it’s safe for you to go.”

Muggle student housing is the last place Bellatrix would ever look, but he’s sure Sirius will take issue with the idea. He’s been like a guard dog around them half the time--and a mother hen the other half, while Regulus has entered a state where he’s mostly resigned to his fate. Having not seen hide nor hair of Bellatrix since the last attempt on his life, the dread he’d been feeling has lessened somewhat, or perhaps been relegated to somewhere at the back of his mind where it mostly presented as late-night trepidation in the wake of loud footsteps in the stairwell. Now, it’s--it’s as if he’s going--crawling--no, just watching a collection of days where every one is very similar to the one before it, somewhat hazy, muggy, chilly like the hallway of Barbara’s flat. He’s still alive, and working half-heartedly towards ensuring his continued survival, but somewhere down the road there’s certainly a black-robed figure and a curse he’ll be too slow or too surprised to stop.

When Barbara excuses herself for the evening, he stretches himself out on the living room sofa. There’s still something bothering him about the conversation he had with Barbara--other than the shameless dumping of his family drama on her--something abrasive but not yet fully developed, and it has to do with Sirius not fitting in. And then it dawns on him: Sirius hasn’t always been the tough rebel in a black leather jacket, with arms twice the size of Regulus’, and while some of that metamorphosis can be attributed to simply reaching adulthood and playing most physically challenging quidditch position for years, but Regulus can’t help but feel like there’s more to it. Sirius was a lot softer when they were younger, flighty, effeminate even, though Regulus hadn’t known the word back then, only learned it from Evan Rosier in fifth year, when he directed a flippant but venomous _He does seem somewhat effeminate, doesn’t he?_ at Craig Gilchrist, while Regulus’ blood turned to ice. Approximately one third of the effort he put in at school was to ensure he’d never be the target of such a comment, and he only knew what to avoid because he’d seen their father beat and force it out of Sirius at home.

He scratches idly at his bandaged wound and slides bonelessly off the couch to reach the record player. His lack of comprehension of the technology behind the turntable has not stopped him from mastering its operation and he puts on one of Lupin’s records, the one with the strange pattern of mountains--or maybe waves--on it. Sirius calls it depressing and it’s never Lupin’s first choice when they put something on, but Regulus has taken a liking to it. It’s haunting and melancholic, and even with his limited exposure to the wonder of Muggle music he can say it’s different from the other records he heard played here or in the safe house in London.

He lies on the carpet, properly despondent, listening to the first side of the record. He’d like to imagine someone coming to pick him up out of this spleen. To proffer a cigarette and an offer to smoke together in the kitchen. Perhaps to pour a little glass of vodka, like Wojciech Urbański did for him at that party, and to proceed to clap Regulus on the back when it doesn’t go down smoothly, like he did, too. But these are normal, acceptable needs, right--for companionship, or friendship even. He misses Pandora and Basil dearly. They wouldn’t have made fun out of his virginity. But they wouldn’t probably have defended him in front of Sirius and Barbara, like Remus did, either.

Even though it feels terribly inappropriate in the light of what surfaced this evening, he imagines Remus coming to join him on the carpet. He’d lie down next to Regulus, so close that their shoulders would be brushing. Would he ask for permission first? He probably would, he liked to keep a veneer of civility and politeness even in situations that are anything but. He’d close his eyes, listening to the final song on this side of the record. Perhaps he does enjoy this band after all. They could talk about that. Or Regulus would turn his head to look at Lupin’s face. The uneven scar on his cheek. The solid shape of his nose. The pale eyelashes. And if Lupin turned his head and their eyes met, Regulus would--he has no idea what he’d do, actually, because Sirius is right--he has no experience in this other than that stunted kiss with Cormac behind greenhouse 3, his biggest slip-up and worst heartbreak until--probably until now. In his fantasies he oscillates wildly between tender kisses in the dark and frantic coupling over the kitchen table. The truth, he supposes, is somewhere in the middle.

Sirius, as it can only be expected, does his best at pretending to be fine. In the morning, he serves them a sumptuous breakfast, consisting of groceries that have Barbara scratching her head over where he might have acquired them in winter and in a country of permanent shortages, but Sirius doesn’t reveal his secrets. He watches over them like a hawk instead, making sure they eat their fill, while his plate is nearly empty.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Regulus asks over the sausages.

“Already eaten,” Sirius replies, lighting a cigarette.

“Please remind me to thank Professor Dumbledore for sending you to me,” Barbara remarks, and they all laugh.

After breakfast, Barbara and Sirius leave on errands and Regulus is left to pore over the translation with Lupin. It’s a tense affair despite them sitting as far apart as the living room allows, and Regulus’ mind strays from the exhausting medieval Latin to other things roughly every five minutes.

Eventually, head falling back against the backrest, he sets the notes aside.

“May I ask you something about Sirius?”

Lupin glances at him suspiciously.

“Go ahead.”

“When did Sirius get so toned?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s.” He wrinkles his nose, determined to avoid the word fit when describing his brother. “He looks strong physically. And I wonder--”

Lupin turns to him. His expression is not unkind, but Regulus can see a trace of exasperation.

“He trained at school and he still does exercise. I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it if you ask, it was quite a big thing back at Hogwarts and I never quite mustered the expected excitement for it.”

“Hm.”

Lupin pierces him with his eyes and for once Regulus can actually see what he’s thinking.

“It’s not about me,” he rushes to explain. “I’m not feeling--inadequate or anything. It’s a--I worry about him.”

“Well, let me give you some advice on that.” Lupin twists on the chair to face Regulus and staples his fingers. “Don’t smother him with your concern. He will lash out at you.”

“I know that, believe it or not,” Regulus snaps. “I’m just wondering if there’s anything we can do now.”

Lupin fixes him with a rather disquieting gaze: he’s sitting there in his frayed jumper with a quill behind his ear, his expression mild, but there’s something in his eyes that makes Regulus sit up straighter.

“About that,” Remus says. “Would you say that your dear cousin Bellatrix has any weak spots?”

“Weak spots as in--a puzzling inability to dress appropriately for afternoon tea or advanced arithmancy?”

“As in when duelling, or otherwise engaging in combat. I know you engaged her at least once,” Remus’ voice falters a bit at that, but he recovers quickly, “and I presume you’ve seen her fight before. And you know her personally.”

“I do, but I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it this way.” Regulus presses his fingers to his temples. “Tactically.”

“I’m not surprised,” Lupin says and when Regulus raises his head in curiosity, he tacks on, “I saw you in action, after all. You fight on instinct, like Sirius does. I know you can plan and strategize well, but in the thick of it you tend to follow your gut.”

“I suppose Bellatrix does the same. She’s definitely on the hot-tempered, impatient side of the family--but she’s very, very quick too. Likes to get a drop on her opponents.”

“I’ve noticed that,” Lupin mutters, eyebrows arched.

“She tends to make things personal,” Regulus adds. “Fish out past grudges, prejudice, things like that. And she’s very easy to provoke, too.”

“That’s an angle that you can use in a fight.”

“What do you mean? As in--taunt her?”

“That could be risky, but I would definitely make it personal. Talk about your family, the things you have in common. Try to throw her off her game. What about fighting stances?”

“Uh, if I recall, she’s very old-fashioned. Shooting from above the head.”

“That’s very telling, I think.” Remus crosses his legs. “That’s a stance that leaves you very exposed, so if she’s using it, she probably doesn’t treat you as a serious threat. Or anyone she fights.”

“Do you do this with every person you engage?” Regulus asks, unsettled. He must have been scrutinized like this when they met on Hirta, way back in autumn.

Lupin smiles.

“My Dad taught me that. He’s not particularly quick, but a great duellist nonetheless, and that’s because he tries to assess his opponents before they fight. It helped me win our duelling club at school.”

Regulus remembers that only vaguely. He was too young to participate, for one, but school and the memories of it seem very distant and hazy too, despite it being only a few months from graduation.

He looks at Lupin and perfectly recalls him curled up behind those dustbins, his face a rictus of pain. Bellatrix was torturing him. She was gleeful, as if she truly enjoyed it.

“She hates your guts,” he says. “Do you realize that?”

“Believe me, I do.” Lupin smiles lopsidedly. “Did you tell her about us?”

It’s obvious what he means by that. Regulus urges himself to stay cool.

“I reckon Snape did. She thinks you’ve defiled our bloodline.” He wrinkles his nose. “You can imagine the effort it took to keep my face straight when I’ve heard that for the first time.”

To his surprise, Lupin laughs.

“That has a nice ring to it. Remus Lupin, the defiler of the Black bloodline.”

As much as Regulus can appreciate being able to find humour in this kind of situation, it’s still not a good position to find yourself in: the object of Bellatrix’ loathing. Fortunately, Remus does seem to be a formidable opponent--Regulus saw the way he carried himself in a fight when they were retrieving the grimoire in the Hebrides. He’s sharp as a tack, whip-fast and has just the right balance between daring and cautiousness. His only weakness seems to be not taking Apparition too well, but that happens to a lot of wizards.

He swallows, recalling what transpired on the island after they’d apparated away from the chapel. Lupin refusing to take the fucking book they’d almost died retrieving. Then proffering his hand like a medieval knight forging alliances on the battlefield. Back then Regulus set his life expectancy at two, perhaps three days, but Lupin’s assist in the fight and his relentless kindness awoke something in him, a craving for more than his limited life span seemed to offer.

When he glances at Lupin now, their eyes meet and Lupin is undoubtedly thinking about the same thing. He even looks like he did back then: abashed and curious all the same, a flyaway lock of his hair across his forehead, and it prompts the same train of thought in Regulus: _is this man really worth throwing all prospects for one’s future away?_ He knows now that there’s lot more behind that concept than just disinheritance, contempt from your peers and an influx of self-righteousness, but while a single and quite chaste kiss was not able to answer that question, the weeks he’s spent with Lupin might have as well succeeded at that. And the answer was: a man like this could be worth all that and more.

 _Bloody Lupin_. He hasn’t looked away yet, still as a statue; only his nostrils are flaring as if he’s scenting the air, his eyes slightly narrowed. If he’s able to read Regulus like a book, then so be it, he’s not embarrassed nor does he regret what he did, and he’d do it again if he could.

Just as the tension becomes unbearable, Lupin clears his throat and turns back to his notes.

“We should get back to the translation. I’d like to discuss the duelling ability of all the Lestranges as soon as Sirius is back, though.”

 _As soon as Sirius is back_ , certainly. Regulus nods and sticks his nose in the Latin dictionary, cheeks flaming. Later that day, in the shower, he presses his forehead against the cold, struggling to contain his frustration. It’s not going well. He recalls from school that some animals secrete these smells that are supposed to attract mates and he feels like he’s been inhaling that all day, hour after hour, as if this doomed attraction to Lupin is happening completely beyond him, somewhere in the lizard part of his brain. He’s not proud of himself, but his hand eventually snakes downward to grasp his half-hard cock, and he keeps thinking about Lupin as he’s wanking. Imagining Lupin’s big hand squeezing and tugging at him, Lupin’s long, skinny body pressed against his from behind, Lupin’s mouth at his ear.

Again, it’s not his noblest moment.

The discovery of the chronicle that traced the mirror to a merchant Wojciechowski in 15th century Poland lets them narrow their search to a few specific sources, and, finally, to pinpoint that a Sigimundus von Hoberg, the last known owner of the mirror, might have been buried with it in 1582. They suspect that Sigismundus’ resting place is in his family’s former estate in Silesia, which means travelling and digging up a four hundred year old grave, in other words--a whole expedition.

Where research had him bored or indifferent, here Sirius is aflutter, delving into planning and logistics and thrilled by the promise of exploration. Barbara, after some deliberation, decides to join them, ostensibly to help with the language barrier, but most probably out of a craving for adventure. Regulus is mostly glad to be able to leave the flat for once; after the venture into the library he’s been confined to it. They are planning to depart for Silesia after the weekend, and Barbara brings up the get-together with Sirius without Regulus even prompting for it.

“I think it’s risky for all parties involved,” Sirius says after a beat. “And by that I mean also you and your mates, Barbara.”

“It’s a very informal get-together in Muggle student housing. No-one outside of us is going to know about it.”

“Still, if someone is looking for three British blokes in Cracow, they’re going to find them easily if one of them becomes a staple at your college parties.”

“They’re all well-versed in secrecy, Sirius,” Barbara argues. “They know what not to say and who not to say it around. It’s par for the course for us here.”

Sirius doesn’t look convinced. He glances at Lupin and suddenly turns on him.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?”

“It’s just that this is a new side of you, Padfoot,” Lupin says wryly. “All concerned about risk and safety. I almost didn’t recognize you there.”

“Maybe that’s because your bloody lives are _at stake_!”

“And they will be, for the foreseeable future,” Regulus pipes in, “but unlike you I don’t have anyone to talk to other than the three of you, and I thought it might be nice to see a face other than yours. I mean no offence, Barbara, you’re lovely.”

“Thank you.” Barbara takes it in stride. “I know what you’re getting at, Sirius, but unfortunately the damage has been done already. Regulus met and introduced himself to my friends. And you,” she points her index finger at Sirius, “yourself, running all over Cracow procuring those sausages, as excellent as they are, is not very clandestine either, I have to say. You’re not exactly inconspicuous.”

Sirius looks a little crushed at that, but doesn’t elaborate. Regulus suspects that some of those sausages might have been pilfered by a huge black dog, but he refrains from saying anything.

“Anyway.” Barbara clears her throat, evidently amazed at how she’s managed to put Sirius in his place for once. “I would like to invite a few people over here. My parents wouldn’t condone that, of course, but--that would be safer, wouldn’t it? Artur and a few others. All of them completely trustworthy.”

“I think--” Sirius starts and Lupin glances at him sharply, “that it would do us all great to meet some new people. I haven’t been to a party in _ages_.”

He gives Barbara a toothy grin and makes an exit. She looks relieved. Regulus recalls their earlier conversation, winks at her and smiles to let her know he’s grateful.

On Saturday night, they are joined by a small crowd of history and archaeology students, who immediately shower his broad-shouldered, disgustingly charming brother with attention and barely understandable compliments in a combination of European languages they know. Unbeknownst to them, Sirius’ disheveled hair, thrown carelessly over one shoulder, dark denims that look like they’ve been through a wringer and an overall rugged and effortless air are the result of a lot of careful grooming in front of both the bathroom mirror and his wardrobe.

Regulus has also made an effort, though in his case it was in order not to dress like an exile from his old life. He finds himself in a pair of tight, flared trousers and a high-collared shirt unbuttoned at the throat. He feels disguised rather than dressed and keeps imagining what Narcissa would say if she saw him like that, not to mention his mother, who would probably need smelling salts. The trousers are pinching him in a private place and it takes a lot of willpower not to adjust himself every other minute.

While Sirius is holding court by the table, pouring drinks and making use of the Polish that he’s managed to scrape up during their time here, Lupin is manning the record player. He’s put on an album Regulus doesn’t recognize, electronic and upbeat, and is pretending to assemble a queue of records supposed to be played afterwards, but he keeps glancing at Sirius on the other side of the room. It’s not jealous or possessive, but watchful and a little dejected. Regulus doesn’t expect his brother to be daft enough to make a move on anyone from that crowd, not just because there would be hell to pay, but because--well, the jury is still out if he even deserves Remus as it is. Nevertheless, Sirius is objectively attractive, which obviously changes the rules of the game. Regulus has seen how differently people react to Sirius and himself, even the mostly level-headed ones, like Barbara, or strangers, who must know that the most they’re going to get out of Sirius is a smile. It’s always been like that, even when they were children and Sirius’ charm was of a different flavour. Perhaps that was what attracted Bellatrix.

He shudders, repulsed at the idea, and makes for the table to get a drink, but he’s intercepted by Wojciech.

“ _Salut! Comment ça va?_ ”, he asks, gifting Regulus with a drink.

“Ah.” Regulus takes it and puts a pleasant smile on his face. “ _Oui, ça va. Content de te revoir, Wojciech_.”

“ _I met your brother_ ,” says Wojciech in French, leaning closer to Regulus. “ _He looks very much like you_.”

“ _It’s the family resemblance. We all look alike_.”

“ _Any other siblings?_ ”

Regulus wants to ask if he’s interested in a potential sister, but he’s unsettled by a vision of Wojciech recognising Bellatrix on the street by way of their nose and hair and eyes and jawline.

“ _We’re not exactly on good terms with the rest of our family. I--went away with a family heirloom. Very valuable. Do me a favour and if you ever see anyone that looks like us, go the other way_.”

Wojciech looks unsettled by that request, and primed to ask questions, so Regulus downs his drink in one go and appears to be delighted.

“ _This was so good! I should get another. Will you give me a minute?_ ”

“ _Oui, bien sûr_.” He places a friendly hand on Regulus’ arm and smiles. His hazel eyes crease at the corners.

Regulus makes a beeline for the makeshift drink bar. Merlin, he can’t go blabbing his life history to Polish half-breeds left and right, this can’t be safe.

“Can you get me another?” he asks Sirius, thrusting the cup forward.

“Sure.” Sirius’ smile is positively devious. “Do you want another one for that Slavic gentleman waiting on you over there?”

Regulus narrows his eyes suspiciously.

“From my experience, I’d say that bloke is definitely trying to pull you.” Sirius’ lips twist. His tone is low, so that they’re not overheard by people milling about with their drinks. “Is that the bookish one you’ve told me about? The one with the--”

“What?” Regulus hisses. “He’s not--that’s not--”

“I would just urge you to keep it in your trousers. Strictly above-the-waist business. We might need you intact for the thing, when we find it.”

“Shut up, Sirius.” He takes the drinks and marches back to Wojciech. “ _I’ve already got you another one, so I suggest moving to the kitchen for now. I’ve got cigarettes. How have you been?_ ”

Wojciech has been well. Doing a lot of coursework. He wondered if they’d already left and was happy to find out they hadn’t. How is their research going? Regulus has to be evasive, remembering his earlier blunder, and leads the conversation back to Wojciech’s extramural studies at the Magical University of Prague, both because it takes the spotlight off of him and because it’s an interesting topic. He’s annoyed with Sirius for giving him the idea Wojciech might be interested in him, because he sees it now, in the way he stands a little too close to Regulus and seems to be amazed at everything Regulus gives away about himself, which is not much, on purpose.

“ _Do you want to go to university?_ ” Wojciech asks and Regulus is completely at a loss. It used to be an option once upon a time, but who’s to say now. Can he be a magical scholar and live among Muggles? Perhaps he can, as per Wojciech and Barbara’s example.

“ _I need to give some more thought to my potential future ventures in academia,_ ” he says, but Wojciech shakes his head, uncomprehending, because he hadn’t been learning French since five years old with a private tutor like Regulus did. “ _Sorry. I--I don’t know, basically. I don’t know anything about my future._ ”

Wojciech smiles at him, a little hapless. This time it’s not the language barrier that challenges his comprehension, and he seems to sense it, too.

He lets Regulus lead him back to the living room, where the party has moved to the music player. Lupin is showing off his extensive collection of records, which are apparently not as easily accessible here as they are in the UK, or at least not the ones people want to get. There are _oohs_ and _aahs_ at some of the ones he picks up and passes around, and then dancing, as a high-pitched female voice starts singing about glass to an energetic, fast-paced backdrop. It’s enjoyable. The community of it. Bodies moving to the same rhythm. Eyes closed, feet thumping on the carpet. Lupin joins in eventually, entirely self-contained in his dancing, elbows close to his body, unexpectedly graceful, sensual even, and Regulus has to avert his eyes in order not to draw certain conclusions.

There are frequent breaks for drinks and shots and it all becomes a little blurry after a while. Regulus enters the bathroom to see Barbara and Artur snogging against the sink, and backs out into a rowdy little group that insists on teaching him a song that he’s certain is laced with expletives. Wojciech keeps asking him questions about the Black mansion and insisting that he’s never been in a stable. Regulus is not sure why he should know that or what language they’re actually using now. He feels like if he focuses really heard he will understand what the two Poles are talking about by the door. He almost has it but he’s distracted by Wojciech and Artur going to smoke.

Eventually, Barbara closes shop and throws all of her friends out, with the exception of Artur. They pull on their winter coats and boots and drift out of the door one by one, making quite a ruckus in the stairwell. Regulus and Barbara fumble the wards badly and only get them up on their third try. If Bellatrix found them today, they would be cooked, so maybe, just maybe Sirius was right about this.

Sirius. Where is he? In the tremulous drunken reality Regulus is operating in it is suddenly crucial to find Sirius. He goes through the rooms one by one until he pushes into the kitchen and stops dead in his tracks. Sirius is there, uncharacteristically single-minded and studious about his current task, his legs straddling Lupin’s thighs, one hand on the side of Lupin’s neck, tipping Lupin’s head back, and the other on Lupin’s chest, as if he pushed him into the chair or maybe was holding him down. The line of Remus’ throat is something to behold. While Sirius seems to have initiated the kiss and bent over Lupin with his shoulders almost blocking the view, it’s Lupin who takes control of it now, shifting slightly, hands on Sirius’ waist pushing him down, Sirius’ arms winding around Lupin’s neck as he’s settling in his lap.

Regulus needs out, now.

He takes a step back, miraculously not walking into the door or onto one of the creaking woodblocks in the hall. He makes his escape into his bedroom, but the sight is branded onto his eyelids. It’s unbelievable, that with so many differences between the two of them the one thing they have in common is their taste in men. It’s like a curse, like an ominous sign that perhaps their parents were right in their caution against consorting with the same sex--and he stops himself, thoroughly revolted. The poison they were feeding him in his childhood and adolescence seems to be coming up now, and violently at that, even the phrase in his mind exactly like their father’s-- _consorting_ \--and he grabs the dustbin and retches into it. It makes him so weak he kneels on the floor, miserable and shaking, eyes glazed with tears.

He throws up most of what he’s drunk and eaten this evening, then crawls into his bed, feeling better, lighter. It’s difficult imagining a courtship to Adelina Selwyn now; their impending wedding seems completely preposterous, even though it was tentatively planned for spring, a few months from now. At school, she was a year up from him, in Slytherin, of course, and the extent of what he knows about her is that she likes arithmancy and horse-riding. He remembers thinking that if it had been up to him to pick a wife, he’d go with Pandora, riveting and brilliant and reassuringly pragmatic, and also not someone he’s ever felt anything for that could resemble the craving he experienced in Lupin’s presence.

He falls asleep curled up in his clothes on an unmade bed. In the night someone comes into his room and trips over the dust bin.

“Oh, fuck.” It’s unmistakably Sirius’ voice. “Merlin’s balls.”

Regulus stays still, eyes closed. Sirius creeps to the bed and leans over him, smelling of mint toothpaste and cigarettes. Whatever he sees there in the dark or hears in Regulus’ regular breathing, must placate him, because he covers Regulus with a blanket from the foot of the bed and strokes his hair away from his forehead, then leaves, the parquet creaking under his feet.

The next day is dedicated to hangovers of varying degrees. Artur seems to be holding up the best and makes breakfast for everyone. Regulus’ stomach is still upset after yesterday and he munches miserably on some toasted bread as everyone around him reminisces about the previous night. He’s not in much of a mood either, so he holes up in his bedroom reading another Muggle book, _Maurice_. He’s definitely starting to see a theme in the novels Lupin lends him and isn’t sure whether to be enraged over the presumptions or perhaps anxious over his own apparent transparency.

On Monday morning, Artur sees them off to the station. It’s not at all like their family holidays: they pack light but smart, Lupin takes his grimoires, Barbara their notes and a thick book on the history of noble families in Silesia. There’s no portkey, but a train that will take them to Wrocław and then to a town whose name all three of them find impossible to pronounce. When they reach it, it’s getting dark and chilly, and Sirius shivers visibly in his ridiculous leather jacket. They mill about the sleepy centre for half an hour before they find a place where they can get a map of the environs: it’s a looming, forlorn hotel with a spiritless receptionist that tells them that no buses leave the town at this hour.

Barbara suggests they hitchhike and it’s a successful strategy--a farmer picks them up in a dilapidated lorry. Regulus holds on for dear life for the entirety of the two-mile trip to the village that used to belong to Sigismundus Hoberg back in the sixteenth century and is still quite shaken after the farmer drops them off near the old palace grounds.

The gate is closed. Barbara makes a face at the sign.

“It’s a State Agricultural Farm,” she says, as if it’s supposed to explain something. “A Pedigree Breeding Establishment, specifically.”

“What does that mean?” Sirius asks, peering in between the rails. While the grounds are silent and dark, lights are visible in between the naked branches of the trees farther off, in the presumed palace.

“It means that after the war this property was seized by the state and turned into a farm.”

“What? What about the family that lived there? The Ho--Hobergs--”

“The Hobergs haven’t lived here for centuries, according to the book. As for the ones that did--I don’t remember their surname--I suppose they didn’t survive the war. Or were banished to Germany after the borders changed.”

Regulus looks at Sirius, preternaturally sure they’re both thinking about the Black Manor in Warwickshire. It’s been standing empty since Grandfather died, but he can’t imagine someone coming in and turning it into a farm.

“I can see someone’s noble sensitivities have been offended,” Lupin says slyly. “Anyway. I’m beginning to understand why you call the Second World War _the War_ , like we do with The Great War.”

“It turned the world upside down for us here.” Barbara slides her hand into her pocket and whispers an Alohomora. The gate opens with a soft clink. “Let’s take a look around, shall we? If anyone asks, tell them we’re looking for tombstones with interesting inscriptions on them.”

“Why that exactly?” Regulus asks, incredulous.

“Oh, that’s what Artur does for his dissertation. You wouldn’t believe the places they let him in on that excuse. He does church bell inscriptions as well, of course,” she adds, as if that, too, is self-explanatory, and slips through the crack in the gate.

The three of them follow suit, Sirius’ hair catching on the lock. He ties it back with a rubber band.

“We should probably be looking for a family graveyard,” he says, looking around in the dark. “Should we split up?”

It’s deemed a good idea. Regulus expects Sirius to pick Remus for his pair, but he goes with Barbara instead. Regulus is left with Remus as the other two go off into the night, discussing the usual placements of crypts on manor estates.

“Let’s go this way,” Remus suggests, pointing at a barely-there path between the trees. The trunks are thick, old. It’s a lot like their mission in the Hebrides, Regulus thinks, as they walk together through the dark palace park, fallen leaves crunching underneath their feet.

They don’t find anything other than a crumbling fountain and circle back behind the palace, which includes skulking underneath the lighted windows of the facade overlooking the lake. There’s a little brooding tower right on the shore, with a crumbling balustrade. The dark surface of the tower reflects the lights, hazy and wavering.

“This is a strange place,” Lupin whispers before Regulus has had the chance to say the same thing. “I can’t pinpoint it, but--I don’t think we’ll find anything outside. Maybe the crypt is under the castle. There might have been a chapel of some sort. Probably rebuilt with the rest of it.”

“I don’t think the Vortex is here,” Regulus says without thinking, but it’s true. It’s supposed to be a powerful artefact and beside that weird feeling there is nothing magical in the vicinity, other than Barbara and his brother.

Lupin looks at him keenly.

“I’d ask you how you know that but I’ve seen Sirius do that before. Let’s tell the others.”

They reconvene outside the gate.

“There’s a chapel, but it’s nineteenth century,” Sirius says. “And not the family we’re looking for. The later owners of the palace.”

“If Sigismundus is anywhere around here, it has to be in the parish church,” Barbara offers. “According to the map, it’s about ten minutes walk up the road from here.”

It’s gotten really cold, so Regulus whispers a warming charm into his hands on the way. The church in question is plastered white, but otherwise not unlike the English churches in the countryside. It’s silent and dark, but the lights are on in the parish building off to the side. They slink close to the side door, four shadows in the November night. Remus’ teeth are chattering, but otherwise there’s no sound.

Barbara lets them in as stealthily as she did before, with the gate. Inside, saints are looking at them from time-worn oil paintings and faded frescos. Knights are keeping vigil on tombstones lining the walls. Sirius jogs up to them with his wand glowing with a weak light.

“This is not Latin,” he says, mildly annoyed. “It’s--German, I think. Ritter Hans van Lobris Bock.”

“1546,” Barbara remarks, leaning in to see the details under Sirius’ arm. “Close to our mark. Let’s look for the Hobergs.”

They spread out across the small church, careful with the lights. Sirius stops in front of an icon depicting a brown-skinned woman framed in gold, holding a crowned child.

“Is this Virgin Mary?”

“Yes, it is,” Barbara replies like it’s obvious. “I’m sorry, what denomination are you?”

“Uh,” says Sirius, turning to Lupin for help.

“They’re Wizarding Anglicans,” Remus supplies. “It’s a watered down version of Anglicanism, with a lot of rites you would call pagan mixed in. All Pureblood families are adherents of that.”

Something rubs Regulus wrong about his lofty tone.

“Excuse me, Professor Lupin,” he says in his poshest voice. Sirius shoots him a grin. “And you are?”

“Catholic,” Remus replies without missing a beat. “Lapsed, though.”

“We’ve got that in common, then,” Barbara admits, somewhat ruefully. “I’d like to hear more about Wizarding Anglicanism later, when we’re not breaking into churches.”

“Yes, right. Let’s see.”

The Hobergs are not depicted in any of the tombstones and epitaphs on the floor of the church, which saps the mood a litte, but Sirius boosts their spirits by finding and opening the entrance to the crypts so effectively Regulus feels awe wash over him, like when they were children and Sirius did something particularly cool and adult. The crypts are dark and damp and in overall a lot like the underground of the abandoned cloister where Voldemort liked to meet, and Regulus takes a step back immediately after entering. Fortunately, he’s at the rear, so nobody’s noticed; they’re all far too engrossed in looking at ancient coffins and dusty bones.

“I’ll be the look-out,” he whisper-shouts, crouching on the stairs. “In case someone comes by.”

The only one to catch them here could be the parson, probably frail and elderly, but Regulus’ legs are suspiciously soft at the knees and his hands cold and sweaty at the same time, so he sits down on one of the steps, wrapping himself tighter in his greatcoat. If they find the mirror--the Vortex--he’ll look into it and they’ll--will they be free to go back to the UK? He’s not sure. He’d like to. He’s terribly homesick and tired of unending research and pretending he’s not in mortal danger all the time and of strange places too.

“I think I’ve got it,” Lupin calls from somewhere below. There are footfalls, echoing in the vaulted Gothic chambers. Regulus strains to hear from the stairs. “It’s--this is---I think this says Sigismundus von Hoberg.”

“Oh shit, it does! Let’s open it.”

“We’re going to get arrested for graverobbing.” That’s Barbara, in a feverish low tone.

“No, we’re not.” That’s Sirius, all self-confidence, his original accent creeping in. “All right, there we go. Heave-ho. Let me just--ah. That’s quite a let down.”

“Maybe it’s hidden somewhere around here.”

Regulus springs up from his seat on the stairs and enters the crypt on wobbly legs. There’s a glow coming from the chamber on the left, illuminating three dark figures hunched over an open coffin.

“Have you got it?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” Lupin slaps a hand to his chest, comically relieved. “You’ve scared the living daylights out of me. Uh, no, it’s not here. Or at least we can’t find it.”

Sirius is rummaging through the coffins with fervour.

“There’s an--ambient magical signature here--so maybe--”

“I think it’s the whole site,” Regulus says. “Not just the crypts, but the church itself.”

“I don’t--if I could just--move this bloody one--”

They all lean over with bated breath as Sirius reveals an entirely empty coffin at the bottom of the pile.

“It’s not here.” He deflates visibly. “Well, fuck.”

They search the whole crypt anyway, just to make sure, but make too much noise in the process and suddenly there are footsteps above. In a flash of panic, they disapparate to a dark nook at the train station in town, Sirius side-alonging Remus and Regulus Barbara. As they walk to the hotel, the mood is somber, to say the least. At the reception the desk clerk mostly ignores them until he hears Sirius speak English, which makes him turn servile and attempt to overcharge them at the same time.

Everyone is too tired to protest when they get an enormous suite instead of the three separate rooms they’ve actually asked for. Barbara claims the right to use the bathroom first and vanishes inside with all of her possessions, including her coat. Regulus wanders the suite for a few minutes, admiring the moldings on the high ceilings and attempting to imagine what the rooms must have looked like with antebellum furniture instead of the current rag-tag collection of ugly sofas and rickety lamp tables, but it’s just a distraction from the cloud of gloom that is already hanging over him. When Sirius leaves to get something to eat, he sits down dejectedly on the single bed in the little room off the master bedroom and sighs. When he was little, Mother used to say he’d sigh like he was forced to start a war. He was an unhappy child, for reasons he is only now beginning to truly understand.

They haven’t found the Vortex, so they’re no closer to defeating Voldemort than they were a month ago. No closer to going back, too. A lot of effort for nothing, apparently.

He hunches over to take his boots off and it’s only when his eyes start to burn that he realizes what’s happening. He pushes his knuckles into his eyes in an attempt to stop the humiliation, but it’s futile, all the tension and dread and uneasiness of recent weeks boils over and comes out in fat, hot tears rolling down his cheeks.

He’s sitting there waiting for it to be over when Lupin pushes the half-open door.

“I’m sorry, I wanted to see how you were,” he says stiffly, stopping at the threshold.

Regulus wipes at the tears with his fingers.

“I reckon it’s obvious.”

“I get that.” Lupin crosses the gap between the door and the bed in one stride and sits down beside Regulus. The bed sags under their combined weight. “I’m a little disappointed too. But this trip--it’s just the first attempt at this Vortex-finding business. To be frank, I really did not expect to find it here. That would have been too easy.”

“It’s not just that,” Regulus says around the lump in his throat. His face is likely swollen and blotchy with crying, but it’s not like Lupin hasn’t seen him like that before. “It’s--this whole situation. I’m exhausted and absolutely horrible at stoic masculinity.”

“As someone who’s quite proficient at it, I can tell you it’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Lupin says with a wry twist of his mouth. “Look. It’s going to be a new day tomorrow. We’ll finally see what this town looks like by day--perhaps better than at night--and look for other leads. I have actually researched more obscure things in my life to success, so why not this one?”

Regulus looks him in the eye, a little annoyed with how transparent this attempt at cheering him up is and very much charmed by it happening in the first place. Lupin reaches out with his hand and for a split second Regulus foolishly expects it to touch his neck, but it makes its landing on his shoulder, the touch light but encouraging. Remus pulls him in for a hug. It’s a little awkward with the way they’re sitting, so Regulus scoots closer, almost unwittingly, but not really. He’s fiercely aware of Lupin’s proximity, his chest against Regulus’ chest, his breath ruffling the hair at Regulus’ ear.

The worst part of it is that he needs this desperately, and so he clutches at Lupin’s back through his scratchy woolen jumper and hooks his chin over Lupin’s shoulder. Lupin holds him close, his huge hands cradling Regulus’ shoulder blades, warm and solid and--buzzing with a vague undercurrent of his unique magical signature.

Barbara is taking a bath on the other side of the wall, which in Regulus’ little room sounds like a waterfall. Sirius, who usually slams doors and thumps his feet, now appears in the master bedroom seemingly without a sound. Regulus sees him perfectly over Lupin’s bony shoulder. He pushes inside with a forceful shove to the door and searches the room. When he sees the two of them on the bed in the adjacent room, his eyes snap to Regulus’.

Regulus draws back, arms dropping to his lap, and Lupin looks over his shoulder just in time to see the sloppy half-grin vanish from Sirius’ face and his expression turn stormy.


	6. Chapter 6

“They’re going to serve us dinner in the dining room downstairs in fifteen minutes,” Sirius says flatly and turns around. His brother and Moony are no longer in his line of sight, but he can hear a conversation in low tones. He clenches his jaw, sitting down on the double bed. He’s supposed to be unpacking his things for the night but it’s suddenly impossible to focus so he’s just pushing things around from one place to another with unnecessary force.

Flushed beet-red, Regulus hurries by and leaves the suite without sparing a glance at Sirius. A few seconds later, Remus comes out of the little room and sits on one of the armchairs with a sigh, legs splayed belligerently. The way they were locked together is branded on Sirius’ fucking eyelids, and he hates it.

“Are you all done cuddling?” he spits out, re-folding one of his t-shirts. “I made them serve us dinner after service hours.”

He isn’t looking at Remus but there must have been an eye roll there, there always is when _Sirius is engaging in his dramatics_ , as Remus calls it.

“We weren’t cuddling,” he says, voice carefully neutral. “I hugged him because he was very upset.”

“That’s not what it looked like.”

“Let me get one thing straight.” There’s now an edge in Remus’ voice, and Sirius welcomes it, because it means he’s going to fight back. “You’re not going to police the way I act around your brother.”

“I’m not policing anything,” Sirius says, despite ample evidence to the contrary. “I’m just a little surprised over leaving for five bloody minutes and coming back to find you two in a tender embrace.”

“He was _crying_ , Sirius.” Remus enunciates like Sirius is hard of hearing, or perhaps slightly mentally impaired. “I hugged him because he was scared and unhappy and crying. That’s it.”

“I’m sure it was,” Sirius says venomously, sure that this will be the straw to break the camel’s back, but unable to stop.

It is the last straw. Remus springs to his feet, fists balling up in anger.

“You know what, I’m sick of explaining myself to you. I act like a fucking human being towards your poor brother and you think--what? That we’re going to pack up and elope? Leave you a break up letter saying _it turns out I like him better_? Jesus Christ, Sirius, you’re so fucking dense sometimes.”

“Okay.” Sirius turns to face him fully, still seated on the bed, but his blood is fire, his veins all but bursting with the heat of it. “Let me explain in terms that would perhaps be more understandable to you. Say you have a younger sister. She’s pretty. And vulnerable. She’s going through things. You had a falling out with her and she’s currently on better terms with me. You leave to get some bloody milk and when you come back you see me with my arms around her on her bed. She’s _clinging_ to me. As you’re watching, I take a whiff of--”

“I did no such thing. Jesus!” Remus goes up in pitch and his Welsh accent makes a glorious come back. “I held him, yes, because he needed it. That boy is starved for human contact--”

“I don’t doubt that. Especially yours.”

“Is this what you think of me? That I’m preying on your vulnerable brother as soon as you're not within earshot?”

Sirius’ breathing is laboured with fury, Remus’ face contorted with rage. The door to the bathroom opens and Barbara comes out, hair wet but fully dressed. She looks between the two of them and smiles stiffly.

“I’m going to be downstairs,” she says.

“We’ll be down in ten minutes,” Sirius grits out even though he knows they won’t.

Barbara closes the door behind her. Remus exhales loudly and paces the length of the room, his fists on his hips. It’s pouring outside, the rain pounding against the window panes.

“We need to get a few things straight, Padfoot,” Remus says. It’s his cold, viciously controlled voice again. “There’s nothing--unsavoury between me and your brother.”

“Oh, really?” Sirius snaps. A question he’s been asking himself for the last few weeks suddenly floats to the surface of his heated mind. “Then why wouldn’t you tell me about your adventures on Hirta?”

Remus turns to him, suspicious and furious. Sirius slowly gets to his feet.

“I couldn’t be sure how you’d react. I was worried you’d do something rash like--seeking him out and--and ruining his resolve.”

“Oh?” Sirius tilts his head, as if curious. “So you didn’t tell me because you thought I’d discourage my brother from defecting from the fucking fascists?”

“And because I knew you’d be insufferable about it!” Remus shouts, throwing up his hands. “This--this is an obsession. It’s obsessive jealousy! This is not the first time you’re acting like this. Every fucking man I talk to for longer than you deem acceptable, every fucking student I sat with or studied with or went on rounds with--you were immediately completely insane with jealousy. Do you even remember what happened in seventh year?”

“Of course I remember what happened in seventh year!” Sirius yells, hands in his hair. “You fucking left me for Augustus Howe!”

“You’re sick.” Remus shakes his head, incredulous. “I can’t bear it. I can’t do this again.”

Sirius is hurting. The pain is pressing at the walls of his heart. His chest is straining from it. He doesn’t know what he wants: maybe for Remus to share his pain, but he can’t, can he, so perhaps for him to acknowledge it, which he doesn’t.

“Yeah, I am sick,” he says, head snapping up. “Mad. Like all Blacks are. Like my mother. Like Bellatrix. Damaged goods. Thanks for reminding me.”

“I did not say that--” Remus raises one hand in an attempt to backtrack.

“Yes, you did,” Sirius plows on. “You called me sick. That’s what you think of me. That there’s something _wrong_ with me, something that runs in our family, and I’ve got it too.”

Remus meets his eyes, flushed and distraught, and Sirius starts to regret that he’s provoked him into a fight. He’s in for some hard truths, truths that are going to hurt a lot worse than it does right now, truths he might not recover from. He inhales in anticipation, but Remus just shakes his head.

“You should take a good long look at yourself, Sirius. Give it some time. Because I am absolutely exhausted by this--” he waves his hand around in a disparaging gesture. “By all of this. I think that this thing running in your family is just a handy excuse at this point. You know you can be different. You’ve proven that. So, think about it. And now, I am going to take five minutes to collect myself and then go downstairs. Please, do not join us unless you can be civil at the table. I implore you.”

He nods, as if confirming that he’s done his share here, taps his foot, spares a last glance at Sirius and leaves.

Sirius feels his face twitch violently, then his arms, then his legs. They kick at his backpack, which goes flying into the wall. It’s empty, but the buckle leaves a little dent in the wall. Sirius kicks the armchair, too. He’s hit wood but he can hardly feel it. There’s a prickling at his eyes and he thinks that this is when people usually cry, but he doesn’t. He just sort of crumples onto the floor, still in his jacket and his boots and his daft drainpipe jeans.

Contrary to what Remus believes, he doesn’t put absolute credence in his perception, so it is possible that the glances he’s seen the two of them exchange weren’t that suggestive, or the subtle shift in Remus’ stances as telling, or the supposedly accidental touches as deliberate as they seemed. But then, Sirius has achieved mastery at watching the secretive, closed, dissembling Moony over the years of their acquaintance, and he knows there’s something there. At least a lot of attention.

He cradles his head in his hands. Logically, it doesn’t make sense, but attraction is not governed by logic, after all. Just like Sirius himself, who’s no good at operating on facts. And what are the facts here? Regulus has a crush on Moony, and Moony has been distant recently, and they haven’t had sex since the Reveal, which is what Sirius calls the unfortunate unearthing of the incident with Bellatrix. He’s noticed Regulus treats Moony differently from everyone else. He’s seen them embracing. It was very close, closer than he’d ever held James or Peter or anyone else.

All in all, it’s possible. After all, something has attracted Remus to him, all the way back in school, and it couldn’t have been his work ethic, which by fifth year had become despicable. His physicality must have had to do with this, despite his own conflicting feelings about it. But there were other factors in the mix. They had been friends before they became lovers. They have been friends far longer than anything else, ever since they met on the train and Sirius had opened with a long rambling story about his pet snake that Remus absorbed with a sort of amazed incredulity.

Who’s to say Regulus doesn’t possess the same quality of--whatever that was, that is, even if Sirius does not consider them too much alike--but that would make it all boil down to the blood, which is a horrible thought.

He slowly picks himself up from the ground. Most of his energy has been drained by the row, but there’s still a nervous current thrumming through his body, looking for a release, and while it’s slowly dawning on him that an outburst wasn’t necessarily the best way to handle that situation, the rejection he got slapped with by Moony is still a very bitter pill to swallow. _Do not join us unless you can be civil_. What he was saying, really, is that he doesn’t want to see Sirius, doesn’t want to eat dinner with him. That Sirius is effectively barred from their company.

This makes him remarkably angry, so he pulls off his jacket, locks himself in one of the bathrooms and does a ruthless run-through of all his exercises. It’s a punishment. Within thirty minutes he’s gasping for breath. Maybe he should drop and do fifty push-ups each time a stupid thought crosses his mind. That’s ridiculous: he’d look like a fucking bodybuilder.

He gives the set another run, just to be sure, and fills the tub with water. He’s just getting in when they come back, discussing Gothic art or something of the sort, and the easy, amiable sound of their conversation pushes him back into a black cloud of resentment, because here he is, _suffering_ , and they dare to have fun without him?

The water cools down in the cold bathroom and he heats it back up to continue his sulking in more appropriate conditions. It’s all quite a bit like back at home, actually; the spacious tub, the door closed between his brother and _angry, irrational Sirius_ stewing in his own juices.

When he comes out, eventually, everyone is tucked into bed. Remus too, his back to the door or their bedroom. Sirius lays down next to him, resentful and a little regretful, too. The gut wrenching truth of it is that Sirius does it all out of love; what he feels for Remus is frightening, all-encompassing, relentless. He wants Moony all to himself, all the time, and while most of the time he realizes that Moony has to be shared, be it with James or Lily or the Lupins, the possessiveness sometimes just floats up out of the dim recesses of his being and obscures all reason. And he’s aware of the workings of his mind enough to know he is not operating on reason when dealing with Reg anyway. It’s like a double disadvantage.

He sighs and turns in bed. The lump that is Remus Lupin keeps so still Sirius knows he isn’t sleeping, so he could try and explain all of this, couldn’t he? After all, he did what Remus asked him: he examined himself in painstaking detail.

“Moony?” he whispers.

Remus doesn’t answer. Sirius lies next to him, helpless in the face of silence. He has no idea what to do with it and how to progress out of the suspicion and fear and paranoia, and he feels it dragging him down, to a place he doesn’t want to inhabit: it’s where his mother and Bellatrix live.

At breakfast the following day, Remus is so proper and polite that one could think he’s the Pureblood in their company. Regulus seems pale and scared and it makes Sirius angry all over again; what the hell does he think, that they’ll throw him out on their arse just because Sirius had a fit? Bloody nonsense. He shoves food into his mouth, hardly registering what is on the menu, and goes back up to give James a call.

“Prongs?” It feels ridiculous to question a dark mirror, but James probably has it stashed under his pillow. “You there?”

Suddenly, James’ tousled head floats into the mirror.

“Yeah, just getting out of bed, hold on a sec--” Sirius glimpses a heap of blankets and red hair in the background before James stumbles into the hall. “It’s awfully early, why the hell are you even up?”

“Early night yesterday. Tell me something good, yeah?”

“Uh, we’re brilliant.” James’ grin fills the mirror and Sirius feels himself respond in kind. “The two of us, at least. We’ve made crazy progress on our--thing. Yeah.”

“The two of you? What about Wormy?”

“He’s been pulling double shifts lately. Haven’t seen much of him, really.”

“Been wondering what’s up with him.”

“I’ll write him and read you his letter, that works?”

“Yeah, that would be brilliant.”

James squints at him for a second.

“You doing okay, Black?”

“I’m fine,” Sirius says, which, he knows, translates appropriately to Prongs. “Our best lead is dead in the water.”

“And the brat?”

“What about him?”

“How is he settling in?”

“Oh, he’s settled in all right.” Sirius gives a bitter laugh, but is too exhausted to even get into the subject. “But nevermind. Any mad cousin sightings?”

“None. All’s quiet on the front, actually. I’m trying to enjoy it without getting too paranoid. Is Moony there? I want to talk to that git.”

“Hold on, I think he’s coming up.” Sirius presses the mirror to his chest and ducks out into the hallway. The rest of their party are back from breakfast, Remus at the forefront, dressed in the jumper Sirius got for him at Debenhams a million years ago in London. “I’ve got James on, do you want him?”

“I do, thanks.” Remus takes the mirror from him without meeting his eyes. Once he sees James, his whole face lights up. “Oi, Prongs, long time no see.”

Compared to the freezing temperatures Remus has had for Sirius today, James has just received a balmy summer afternoon. Sirius grinds his teeth, but Barbara coming up to him stops him from glaring at Remus’ back.

“I asked at the reception and there’s a train leaving in an hour,” she says.

“Can’t we Apparate?”

“I don’t think that’s wise. We Apparated yesterday, which might have drawn attention already.”

“Right. Fair point.”

“I do have some ideas about where we could look next. But I’ll need to consult some sources at home.”

“You do? Already?”

“Sure.” She shrugs and reaches out to pat him on the arm. “Don’t worry that much. You’ll make up with Remus in no time, too. I know how it is, we argue with Artur all the time.”

He gapes at her as she walks past him into her little room. Well, if anything, this answers the question of whether Barbara knows, and if she knows, whether she takes issue with being saddled with three miserable queer British blokes.

They pack up promptly and head for the train station. The town is still wet and shiny from last night’s rain and a wintery chill permeates the air. Sirius regrets not packing a coat; he somehow expected Poland to be warmer than the UK, but he must have mixed it up with another country, because it definitely isn’t.

Remus sits opposite of him on the train, his long legs pressed together and tucked to the side to take up the least space possible. It’s still difficult not to brush against one another in the cramped compartment and Sirius wants to catch his eye but Moony is in full avoidance mode. Barbara settles down next to Sirius and quickly delves into a book that Sirius can’t make any sense of while Regulus digs out their notes and pretends to be transfixed by them. Devoid of any eye contact or possibility for conversation, Sirius stares listlessly out the window at the strange Muggle world of Central Europe, while a blood supremacist regime marches on in his homeland.

By the time they reach Cracow, Sirius is stir-crazy and starving, and dusk is falling, ushering in November gloom. They tumble off the train and into the station. Sirius is at the front of their little group, laying out a sophisticated plan on how to obtain sausages in his mind, when a tall man in a waistcoat and a dark red overcoat steps out of the main building about a hundred feet ahead.

He doesn’t think; he turns and herds them onto the stairs to the underpass.

“This isn't our turn yet, Sirius--” Barbara protests.

“I saw Lestrange up ahead,” he hisses, pushing Regulus forward with a hand at his back. “It’s Roddy Lestrange.”

“You sure it’s Rodolphus?” Remus stops at the foot of the stairs.

“Of course I’m sure, Moony! He was even wearing robes transfigured into a coat! I’d recognize his daft face anywhere.”

“Oh, fuck,” Regulus says. A burly man with a huge suitcase almost tramples him getting down the stairs, and Sirius yanks him closer. “Fuck, they’ve found us. Rabastan and Bellatrix must be with him. Rodolphus’ never on his own.”

Sirius nods, busy with scanning their surroundings.

“The question is what we do now.”

“We go home and put up the wards,” Barbara says. “Like you said, good wards are impenetrable, right?”

“They are, but it also means that we can never leave.” Remus taps his index finger against his lips. “Before we left, they’d jumped me when I was throwing out the rubbish. If we hide at your flat, which they are going to find sooner or later, it’s only a matter of time and opportunity for them to get to us.”

“But what--what can they even do?” Barbara asks, exasperated.

“Barbara--” Sirius starts.

“They tortured me the last time,” Remus interrupts, voice calm and steady. “That’s what they did. She--Bellatrix--made sure it hurt and left a mark. I wouldn’t be standing here if these two hadn’t dragged me out and to the hospital.”

“Oh God,” Barbara clamps her hand to her mouth.

“So we need to be smart about this,” Regulus says, his former panic now firmly under control, his sharp eyes flicking from Remus to Sirius and back again. “I will go ahead and assume we cannot lead them to Barbara’s flat without putting her and her friends in danger.”

“No, no, absolutely not,” Remus agrees, taking Barbara reassuringly by the elbow.

“Then we should lead them away from Cracow,” Sirius pipes in. “Otherwise they will come for us anyway. We’ve got to make them believe we’ve left, and that they have to look for us elsewhere.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think you’re right,” Regulus admits. “We should draw them out and then Apparate away somewhere, and lose them in the process. Make it look as if we’re leaving.”

Sirius nods, the sausage plan going away and the emergency plan building up in its place.

“Yeah. You two--” he points at Regulus and Barbara, “should Apparate to Barbara’s and pack our remaining things. Then go to the _rendez-vous_ point, say, the second one. Okay? Second _rendez-vous_ point. We’ll meet you there after we lead them away.”

“No, that won’t work.” Regulus shakes his head. “They won’t believe the ruse until they see me leaving with you.”

“Do you have any Polyjuice left?”

“What? No. I’ll bait them out in person, and then get away. Your drills will finally come in handy.”

“We should denounce them,” Barbara pipes in.

“Huh?”

“I told you. Magic is virtually illegal around here. If anyone uses it, especially in abundance, they can be denounced to the Ministry of Public Security. So, you--you can draw them out, and I will call the Ministry with information about foreign spies using strange weaponry. They should get here in a few minutes or so.”

Sirius feels like he hasn’t fully appreciated Barbara until a minute ago.

“That’s brilliant. Let’s do it.”

There’s a huff of breath that could be construed as a growl--and Sirius is surprised to see that Remus’ is the source of it. His upper lip is curling in a snarl, eyes fixed on a point above Sirius’ left shoulder.

“And let’s take the fight to them. I’m fed up with running away and hiding.” He looks straight at Sirius, for the first time since their row, and it’s electrifying. “I want Bellatrix to pay for what she did to me. I want her to pay for what she did to you, too.”

Sirius holds his gaze as a strange kind of shiver runs down his spine. Regulus breaks him out of it by grabbing his forearm.

“Let’s go, before they find us first.”

“Okay.” He looks at Barbara. “Go. Don’t stay here waiting for us. _Rendez-vous_ point two. See you there.”

She nods with determination and sets off for the telephone booth.

The three of them exchange looks. Sirius would like to declare himself fearless and valiant, but the truth is that he’s not feeling particularly combative right now; they were supposed to have dinner and read Barbara’s obscure books and go to sleep, Merlin damn it all to hell.

“I’ll take point on this,” he tells them and takes the stairs two at a time.

“I still don’t get your infatuation with all these military terms,” Regulus complains, slightly breathless from keeping up on shorter legs.

Remus is a silent, grim presence at his side. Sirius could burst with pride and ardor just by looking at him, so he resorts to a glance or two. They quickly come in view of the main station. Rodolphus is no longer visible in the crowd milling about the doors.

“Do you see him anywhere?” Remus hisses, head whipping around.

Before Sirius can hear Regulus' answer, he rounds the corner and enters the station building.

There’s people everywhere--by the indicator boards, ticket offices, the exit--but the Lestrange brothers stand out like a sore thumb among the crowd of modestly dressed Muggles. Rabastan is watching the exit to the street and Rodolphus the one to the platforms, and he takes notice of Sirius immediately.

He waves as if to signal someone--but Sirius has already spotted Bellatrix, clad in ostentatious blood-red taffeta and harassing a clerk at the line of ticket offices. She turns as if she sensed Sirius somehow, without even seeing the signal, and her eyes lock onto his. Her eerily similar face, the features only a little softer than his or Regulus’--he’s immediately fourteen again, scared witless, small.

“Darling cousin!” she calls out in a tone that easily pierces the clamour. Several heads turn her way, because of the volume or the foreignness or both. “And the Mudblood,” she tuts upon noticing Remus. “You keep such poor company, Sirius.”

Remus snorts at being called that. Sirius feels his warm exhale on the shell of his ear and takes a deep breath.

“Have you been looking for us, Bellatrix?” His voice rings out in the hall and helps him regain a sense of self: it’s resonant and powerful and cheeky, the voice of someone who’s aware of the danger but will take it full on.

“We’ve been mostly looking for the traitor,” she replies with a sneer. Her eyes flit over to the side, where Regulus must be standing. “You shall be coming with us, little Reggie.”

It’s like it’s happening in slow motion: Rabastan and Rodolphus trading glances and moving to flank, Bellatrix veering through the crowd in their direction.

“There’s a lot of people here, Padfoot,” Remus murmurs. Sirius sees him out of the corner of his eye, a lanky shadow at his shoulder.

“I’m aware.” He grabs Remus and Regulus by the forearm as he waits for Bellatrix’ pale tense face to emerge from the throng. Regulus flinches but doesn’t tear away, and Sirius raises his voice again. “Unfortunately, dear cousin, we were just leaving. Catch ya later.”

Pop they go, vanishing from the building entrance to re-appear at one of the platforms farther off. Fortunately, it’s mostly empty. Remus doubles over from the Apparition and Sirius steps in front of him while Regulus takes a defensive position to the side. Their stances mirror each other, because--he remembers suddenly, vividly--Reg is left-handed.

Bellatrix Apparates fifty yards away, flanked by the Lestranges. Regulus throws down a shield just in time for their first hexes to bounce off of it.

“Just let us take the boy, Sirius.” Bellatrix ducks behind a support column, dodging Sirius’ _Petrificus_. “He’s got a lot waiting for him back home.”

“I’m fine where I am.” Regulus fires a powerful smoky hex that has the Death Eaters spring apart to avoid the fallout. “But while we’re at it, Bellatrix, you can go to whatever hole you’ve crawled out of.”

“Look at him mouthing off,” Bellatrix crows from behind the column. “We’ll see if you’re this plucky once you’re on your knees before the Dark Lord!”

She hurls a Reductor Curse his way and the bench he’s been ducking behind explodes. Sirius rolls away. Something slams him in the thigh and he falters getting back up, falls back to his elbows and knees.

There’s a shouted curse behind him and he sees a wand roll to the edge of the platform in the distance, but before he can _Accio_ it, Rabastan crawls to it and grabs it in a fist.

“Let’s go.” Remus grabs Sirius by the collar and hauls him up. Rabastan’s jinx hisses by his ear, missing him by an inch.

“Yeah. The hotel!” He exclaims loudly from behind a glimmering shield. “Warsaw!”

Regulus is plastered to one of the columns. He meets Sirius’ eyes and nods. Remus’ hand in his, he Apparates to the Forum hotel in Warsaw, tenth floor.

Remus slaps a hand to the wall, pale all over. Regulus is hot on their heels.

“Are the security blokes there?” Sirius rubs his bruised thigh with his free hand.

“Not yet. I think we need more time.”

“I don’t think there’s--” Sirius starts and is interrupted by the Lestranges popping into being at the end of the hall. His arm is up for the _Protego_ in an instant while Remus makes a strange hurling motion with his wand arm--and a swarm of arrows explodes out of it.

With a slash of her wand, Bellatrix casts half of them to the side. Behind her, Rodolphus gets two to the chest and falls back with a shout.

“You mutt!” Bellatrix hisses at Remus who is standing, fearless, in the middle of the hallway. “You might want to know we have orders to bring the traitor back alive, and the locket. But not you. You, I am going to relish killing, you filthy beast.”

Sirius is propelled forward by something primal and horrid, but he’s not fast enough. Bellatrix fires--it’s a sickening green light--and they spring apart, falling into the twin niches of hotel room doors. Sirius’ backpack thumps loudly against the wood and someone cracks the door open.

“No, stay inside!” he barks as he yanks it closed.

Opposite of him, Remus straightens, wand at the ready. Sirius listens for nearing footsteps--but there aren’t any, the floor is carpeted. If she’s getting closer to them, they have no idea.

“I heard you were talking about me,” Remus says suddenly. There’s a loud bang at the other side of the hallway and Regulus’ voice shouting the stunning spell triumphantly, which means he must have Apparated to the Lestrange brothers. “I have to say I’m surprised, I did not assume my existence would register for you.”

“Talking about a Mudblood?” Bellatrix answers from closer than before. “That does not sound likely. I do not often trouble myself with your lot.”

“Apparently you do with me,” Remus continues. When he meets Sirius’ eyes for a second, there’s a wicked glint there, and Sirius catches on to what he’s doing. “From what I know, you’ve troubled yourself enough to coin a catchy moniker for my humble self. _The defiler of the Black bloodline_.”

“There are few lesser crimes than diluting the noble blood of our ancestors,” Bellatrix declares. Her voice has that breathy quality that signals impending fury. “But the one you drove my poor cousin to commit is by far the worst--the heir, lying with an unclean half-blood beast--”

“I’m frankly looking forward to defiling your bloodline some more this evening,” Remus says, flippant, but his teeth are showing, his whole face frozen in a snarl. “The heir seems to enjoy it, too. Don’t you, Sirius?”

Bellatrix screams with rage and Remus ducks out of his niche. There’s a resounding crash. Sirius is out in the corridor half a second later and all he sees is a huge cloud of smoke and dust flashing white and red and blue like the fucking Union Jack. It’s Remus, duelling Bellatrix inside of it, lightning fast and silent, while Bellatrix is spewing a constant stream of horrible expletives out of which _bloody sodomites_ is the least offensive one.

There’s a crack and Rabastan Lestrange appears at the nearer end of the hallway.

“ _Stupefy_!”

“ _Incarcerous_!”

They both miss. Regulus pops into existence behind Rabastan’s back and fires a rapid _Expelliarmus_ at him. Rabastan’s wand flies out of his hand and Sirius springs up to him and socks him in the jaw with all his might. There’s a sickening crack and Rabastan goes down, straight into Regulus, who steps deftly to the side. Rabastan clatters to the floor and Sirius fires a _Petrificus Totalus_ at him for good measure.

“We have to go back to Cracow,” Regulus reminds him. He’s bleeding from the arch of his right eyebrow. “For the security--”

“Yeah. Come on.”

The smoke is dissipating and Sirius can see that the duel moved into the other part of the hallway, and Remus seems to be on the offensive, pushing Bellatrix further back. Sirius breaks into a run. Bellatrix spots it and shoots something at him, but he zig-zags, like James taught him, and she misses, but it makes for an opening: Remus fires the arrows at her again.

Bellatrix is lightning fast, but not fast enough, and three of them find their mark in her thigh, belly and shoulder. She cries out in pain and gapes at the wounds as if surprised at her apparent lack of inviolability.

“Serves you right,” Sirius barks at her and grabs Remus to Disapparate.

They land back at the main station in Cracow, on the platform that Bellatrix tried to blow up. There are people in uniforms inspecting it that almost faint at their sudden reappearance, and Sirius can see blokes in black suits jogging towards them from the main station building.

“That’s got to be the Public Security agents,” Remus pants next to him. “Where’s Regulus?”

Sirius whips his head around and spots a lone figure in a greatcoat at the adjacent platform. There’s a crack and Bellatrix and Rodolphus appear about thirty yards away from him, bedraggled, bleeding and angry.

Sirius makes for the platform edge but Remus grabs him.

“No, we’ve got to go! He knows the _rendez-vous_ points!”

“We can’t leave him--”

“He can protect himself--”

Before their eyes, Regulus fires a resonant Expulso at the Lestranges and Disapparates from behind the shroud of smoke. There’s a lot of shouting and pointing from the Muggles and Sirius lets himself be dragged from the edge of the platform and pushed towards the stairs into the underpass.

Remus takes his hand and Apparates them to the first get-away point, which is a hill just outside of Cracow.

“Reg! Regulus! Where are you?!” Sirius searches for him frantically in the dark, until Remus intertwines their fingers again.

“He probably took another route, Padfoot. We should cover our tracks and meet up with Barbara, because if we go back to the station now, we will surely be caught by the security police. Are you with me?”

Sirius nods and takes them through the apparition points, ending with the one just inside the wall of the Rakowicki Cemetery, by a Gothic red-brick mausoleum. It’s remote, silent and--empty.

He exhales shakily and fishes his cigarettes out of his jacket.

“He’ll come, you’ll see.” Remus straightens and does up his coat. “Plus, we need to see if Barbara’s okay. She’ll be able to help us with navigation and the police, if--if something’s gone wrong.”

“I hope you’re right.” Sirius taps the pack on the palm of his hand and fishes a cigarette out with his mouth. He’s slowly coming down from the high of the fight. “Want one?”

“Oh, yes.” Remus’ teeth flash in the dark as Sirius pulls out and lights a cigarette for him. “God. That was--”

“Yeah, what the hell was that, Moony? How did you know about that _defiler_ crap?”

“From Regulus. He told me about it.” Remus chuckles, incredulous. “Jesus, I think I caused Bellatrix Black permanent damage.”

“Well, brain damage with those images for sure.” Sirius exhales smoke through his nostrils and breathes out a laugh. “That was _astounding_. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her that angry.”

“I meant what I said,” Remus says, eyes locking on Sirius’. His cigarette is a red point in the dark. “Earlier.”

“I know.” Sirius is immensely touched by it, declaration and action both. He’s not sure anyone’s ever fought for him before. He reaches out and takes Remus’ free hand to bring it to his lips, with its dry skin and scarred knuckles and all. Remus is breathing quite loudly in their little bubble, away from the lights and clamor of the city.

It takes another fifteen minutes of pacing and smoking for footsteps to sound on the gravel, making them draw their wands.

“It--It’s me,” Barbara says, stepping out of the murk with her hands up. “I’ve come as quickly as I could. Are you all right? Did it work?”

“We’re okay. Regulus is not with you?”

“No. Did you get separated?”

“Yeah, at the train station. Oh, that’s not good.” Sirius yanks at his hair. “That’s not good at all.”

“Could it be that the Security agents got him?” Remus asks. “Are they wizards? Can they trace Apparition? That’s fairly sophisticated magic.”

“I’ve got no idea. I suspect the ones who pursue wizards might be able to Apparate, but no one really knows the extent of their powers.”

Sirius starts to pace again, following the path he’s worn in the wet grass.

“Let’s say we go back to the station--what then? How can we trace him after this much time has passed?”

“This Ministry of Public Security,” Remus interjects, “I don’t suppose will be willing to tell us what happened and who got arrested?”

“Oh, no.” Barbara grimaces. “Absolutely not. We cannot approach them. It’s crucial that the Ministry never register your existence. Ever.”

Remus frowns. “That’s one thing. There’s more: we can’t be staying at your place anymore, Barbara. If they track us there--do you have any idea where we could go until--”

“I’ve actually already arranged that. I called Artur, he’ll be here any minute. He’ll take us to his parents’ home in the country.”

“God, you’re a life-saver. Thank you.”

In a rush of gratitude, Sirius takes her by the shoulders and squeezes. Barbara smiles up at him faintly, as if surprised, though it’s unclear whether at this whole turn of events or her own role in it.

As they wait, they attempt to piece together what transpired at the train station, with the consensus being that the Security agents went after the Lestranges. Barbara is bewildered by their appearance and evidently wants to dwell on their subject but Sirius, normally very eager to slander Bellatrix, is distracted by Regulus missing. His foot is tapping at an abnormal speed and he has a very clear, highly improbable vision of his mother saying _how could you have lost your little brother like that, you ignorant little wretch?_ as if they were still in their early teens and furtively exploring the Manor.

“We need to go back for him,” Sirius says, interrupting Remus. “It’s been--”

“Shh.” Remus raises a hand in warning. “Someone’s coming.”

Indeed, faint rustling in the distance turns into footsteps that are accompanied by a muffled panting. Sirius and Remus step in front of Barbara, wands out, shoulders touching.

There’s a pale face emerging out of the darkness, with black eyebrows and a red slash of a mouth. His brother’s.

“Thank Merlin, there you are,” he huffs out, coming to a stop and doubling over with exertion. “I’ve come as fast as I could.”

“Where have you been?” Sirius rounds on him, some vague suspicion already forming in his mind.

“They were chasing me,” Regulus reveals in a slightly accusatory tone. “The Ministry of Security blokes. They traced my Apparition and they went after me like Aurors. I had to lose them and let me tell you, it was not easy.”

“So they can do that,” Remus says with a sideways glance at Barbara.

“There’s a reason why we’re not taught to Apparate.” Barbara shrugs. “And we don’t use brooms or that other thing you mentioned, with the fireplaces.”

“They definitely knew what they were doing,” Regulus continues, head tilted up, hands propped up on his thighs above the knees. “I tried to shake them--on the second Apparition point. I eventually Apparated back to the train station--and came here on foot. To avoid bringing them here. We should get out of here, on the off-chance they followed me.”

Barbara takes the lead, stepping onto one of the beaten paths. They follow, huddled close together.

“Did they get the Death Eaters?” Sirius asks. “Do you know?”

“I haven’t the faintest,” Regulus replies ruefully. “I was busy running. But if they went after them even half as hard as after me, there’s a chance.”

“What would they do to us if they caught us?” Remus catches up with Barbara.

“There are rumours about a special prison in the mountains.” She shoves her hands into her coat pockets. “But no one I know has ever been there, fortunately.”

“I just hope Bella thinks we’re stationed in Warsaw.” Sirius frowns. “We can’t be both looking over our shoulders and hunting relics all the bloody time.”

“It was a good ruse,” Regulus says. His eyes flash in the darkness. “We gave it to them good, Sirius. Bella was _seething_. I have never seen her in such a state.”

“Yeah.” He finds himself surprised at that, at what a front they’ve formed and what it withstood. “We did, actually.”

He smiles, mostly to himself, his chin and jaw pressed into the collar of his jacket for protection from the biting cold. Before them, Remus and Barbara reach the gates of the cemetery and Artur, who is waiting there for them with a hefty rucksack on his back. Since the train station is out of the question, he takes them to a bus stop and they soon board a rickety old bus heading for the country. Sirius’ hunger, suppressed by all the action and emotion, makes a vicious comeback and his stomach growls loudly.

Remus elbows him softly.

“I’ve got a sandwich from breakfast in my backpack. We can share it.”

“Thank you, Moony,” he says with feeling. Remus rummages in his backpack and produces a greasy bundle. The sandwich is flattened and sad. Sirius bites into it without hesitation. “You just saved me from certain death.”

“I’m sure,” Remus replies dryly, eyebrows raised.

Outside the dirty window, the city is a maze of brightly lit roads and crossings. Within half an hour, it becomes all dark, with a spattering of lanterns in the distance every once in a while. In the front, Barbara is probably telling Artur all about their encounter, judging from her fervently rustling Polish. Sirius sneaks a glance at Regulus, sitting calmly in his seat, legs crossed, the cut at his brow crusted over and a little swollen.

“What?” he mouths at Sirius when he notices him looking. Sirius shakes his head and turns to face the front.

Remus nods off soon, his head coming to rest on Sirius’ shoulder. Sirius is kept awake with the memory of the threat: that green light shooting by his head and Remus’ shoulder. Reg thrown into a communist prison for wizards. A number of scenarios resulting in imminent death or imprisonment, dodged today by good wandwork and the help of their allies and some dumb fucking luck.

In an hour or so, Artur gestures for them to get up. Sirius nudges Remus with his nose.

“Moony, we’re getting off. Let’s go.”

Remus unwinds his long limbs sleepily. They both have to duck so as not to bump their heads against the roof of the bus, which spits them out at a dark stop in the middle of nowhere.

“You okay, yes?” Artur asks them in concerned, heavily accented English.

“Yes, we’re fine.” Regulus gives him a polite smile, or at least that’s the impression he gives in the dark they’re left in once the red glare of the bus lights fades.

“Okay, we go.”

“It’s a short walk to their house,” Barbara explains. “Just down the road.”

There is, actually, an asphalt road forking off to the left, flanked by rows of tremendous old trees. Behind them, on both sides, there are lights flickering from the windows of houses or cottages. It looks like a good place to lay low; Sirius definitely doesn’t see Bellatrix following them here.

Their footsteps echo on the empty street. Remus is up ahead with Barbara and Artur, talking about the hamlet; Sirius has fallen behind a bit, looking around at a country landscape completely different from the Warwickshire of his childhood.

“Sirius,” Regulus says softly. He’s right at Sirius’ side, his thumbs hooked in the strap of his backpack.

“Yeah?”

“Look, I wanted to make something clear.” Regulus looks at him with a gravely serious, still face, and Sirius knows to listen intently. “I am not trying to be--to become you. To mimic you. In any way.”

“I never said you were,” Sirius says, throat suddenly tight.

“It might look like that, what with leaving the family and--and all. I am not sure who I might become yet, but it’s not you. I am a different person from you.”

“I know. We’re not twins.”

“No, no, we’re not.”

They walk in silence for a beat or two, and then Sirius blurts out:

“Have you ever really wanted to be me?”

“Of course.” Regulus scoffs. “Madly. When I was little and you went to school. Later, too.”

“And when I left?” Sirius casts a quick glance at his brother. He’s looking intently at his feet.

“Then too, but in a different way. I saw you with Remus and realised you were--free.”

“I--I’m not completely free of it, Reg,” Sirius says and clamps his traitorous mouth shut for the remainder of the walk. He’s weirdly annoyed by the frankness of their conversation and avoids looking at Regulus, so he has no idea of his expression or lack of it.

Up ahead, Remus, Barbara and Artur stop at a crude wrought-iron gate. Artur pushes a small gateway to the side of it and lets them onto a gravel driveway leading to a two-story house with a sloping roof. There are flower beds in the front, an orchard to the side and a narrow path leading from the yard out back, to the forest.

Artur’s family consists of his middle-aged mother, short but extremely commanding, and his two younger sisters, one looking the age to start Hogwarts and the other a few years older. They are both unbearably excited by foreign guests and badger Artur and Barbara with endless questions until the mother shoos them away and puts hot, glorious, mouth-watering food on the table. Only deeply ingrained remains of good manners let Sirius thank her for her hospitality first and stuff his face second.

He has no idea what Artur’s family is told about their being here, but for the moment he’s just happy not being the one to lie this evening. After inhaling a whole plate of pierogies, he lets himself be led downstairs, to help Artur arrange places to sleep for the three of them. Fortunately, there’s no difficult-to-explain double bed here, just old springy sofas that are undoubtedly too short for Remus. Sirius stutters out a thanks in Polish to Artur, who claps him on the shoulder and repeats _okay, okay_.

Sirius is not a hundred percent okay. He sits down on one of the sofas--cots, really--and puts his head in his hands. He feels like they’re slowly running out of places to run away to, like the world is shrinking, and he’s in charge of making it big and safe again. They should appoint a _rendez-vous_ point in the vicinity of this house too, just to be on the safe side, too, but his head hurts just thinking about it.

He’s unlacing his boots when Remus comes downstairs and into the room. Sirius looks at him mournfully, and Remus sighs and goes to sit down next to him. For a little while, it’s silent save for the muffled voices coming from above, his brother’s muted laughter, a sound he hasn’t heard in a long time.

Remus pretends to be busy unpacking his backpack, but Sirius knows he’s waiting for something.

“I’m sorry for yesterday,” he utters finally, painfully. “I know I can be better and I try--I try but sometimes I just slide right back.”

“I know,” Remus says, turning to him. His eyes are big and soft and trustworthy, and they’ve got the four of them out of trouble a lot of times. Sirius hates to see judgement in them.

“I’m still in awe over what you did today.”

“Yeah?” Remus’ frowning forehead smooths out. “You are?”

“Yeah.” On impulse, Sirius draws him close and kisses him soundly. Remus responds by threading his fingers in Sirius’ hair. They break apart but stay close, Sirius holding on to Remus’ forearms with both hands. “And, frankly, quite afraid to ever be on your bad side.”

“You should keep to my good side,” Moony says and the breathy quality of his voice sends shivers down Sirius’ spine. There he was, ready to keel over all of three minutes ago, and there he is now, climbing into Remus’ lap despite the vicious creaking of the sofa. “Padfoot--”

Sirius silences him with another kiss. Their mouths slot together perfectly, as if they were made solely for this purpose. Slipping and sliding. Arms locking over shoulders. Thighs bracketing hips. Then Remus pushes him gently away.

“We can’t. Someone might walk in.”

“Right.” Sirius slides dejectedly onto the floor, but he’s still clinging to Remus’ leg, half-turned on and half-annoyed with the moment being over. Apparently it’s not, because Remus is getting up and extending his hand to him.

“Come on. Let’s go somewhere.”

“Where?” He lets Remus drag him to his feet. “It’s late evening in November--”

“We’ll cast a warming charm.” Remus throws his coat on and pushes Sirius’ jacket into his arms. “Let’s just--”

He rips a page out of his journal and scribbles a quick message: _We’re out for a walk, be back soon - R &S_. Sirius rolls his eyes. It’s going to be transparent to both Regulus and Barbara what this walk is about, but faced with the prospect of fucking in the wild, he doesn’t give a toss.

He thrusts his arms into the sleeves of the jacket and creeps to the front door trying not to make too much sound, which is a challenge when wearing heavy wooden-soled boots. Remus is on his heels, his breath hot on the nape of Sirius’ neck.

The doors close with a soft thud and they’re in a chilly, inky dark. The sky is exquisite, starry and velvety, not at all like above London or Cracow. Remus takes him by the hand and leads him deeper into it, past the henhouse with its soft clucking and the vague silhouettes of fruit trees, to the looming black line of the forest.

They have made use of the isolation of the wood before, at school and at Remus’, when his parents were in, because Remus was paranoid about his parents overhearing, but it was usually in the warmer months and Sirius is shivering even before Remus draws him in by the back of his head. He pushes his hands underneath Remus’ coat and jumper to bracket his narrow waist with his palms. Remus tilts Sirius’ head with a tug on his hair, his nose pressing into Sirius’ cheek, and Sirius is too tall and heavy to climb him but by Merlin he’d so love to in moments like these. Instead, he growls and bites Remus lightly on his lower lip, which gets him released from the hold on and shoved back. He stumbles a step and hears Remus cast something, and when Remus shoves again, he goes down trusting and willing. The charms cushion his fall onto the grass which is as soft as a mattress and as warm as their living room.

Propped on his elbows, Sirius is able to take in Remus’ silhouette and not much else. It could be anyone, really, shedding their layers and unbuttoning their trousers here in the dark with him, and while that’s an interesting prospect--fucking a stranger like that, spread out on the grass with his jacket slipping down his shoulders--it’s all the more exciting to know it’s actually restrained, timid, well-mannered Moony crawling over him on all fours and hiking Sirius’ leg over his hip with an iron grip on is thigh. Sirius snakes his arms around him and pushes with the leg he has on the ground, and they roll on the ground until they breach the protective bubble of the heating charm and the grass crackles with frost under their bodies. Sirius yelps and rolls them back in a tangle of limbs, leaves and blades of grass clinging to their hair and clothes.

Remus comes out on top, which Sirius pretends is not by design, and raises himself on his knees to straddle Sirius’ thighs. Sirius is suddenly reminded of--no, he pushes that away, he’s here, now, with Remus, in the dark. He doesn’t even know the name of this place. There’s just--this copse of trees and his harsh panting in the warmed up air.

Remus unbuckles Sirius’ belt and stills with his hands on the zipper.

“Are you going to defile me?” Sirius asks, prompted into action by the stillness.

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes,” he breathes, suddenly desperate for it. “Do it. Do whatever you want.”

Moony gives a deep exhale and Sirius is seized with worry that he’s been too vulnerable for his liking--too fragile altogether recently--but then Remus leans closer and Sirius can see his heavily lidded eyes and open, glistening lips, his face slack with want. Sirius arches up for it, for Remus’ mouth on his, Remus’ hand on his neck. It all spirals into that thoughtless daze of desire, fingers and mouths and cocks, him braced on his palms with Remus’ hand pressed to his mouth, muffling the sounds, and good, because he could howl with how good it is, getting fucked within an inch of his life in somebody’s backyard.

Remus rolls off of him and lies on his side, gasping for air. Sirius collapses next to him, covered in goosebumps because the goddamn charm is wearing off and his pants are somewhere around his ankles. He tucks himself in, pulls his jeans on and lies on his back, facing the sky. His star is visible between the naked branches of the trees and he keeps his gaze on it as he fishes a cigarette from the crumpled pack in his pocket.

“Jesus, what’s wrong with us,” Remus utters, incredulous.

“Nothing, Moony.” Sirius turns to face him. “We’re perfectly fine. You want one?”

“Sure.”

He puts another slightly flattened one in his mouth and lights both with a snap of his fingers. They smoke them in silence and reflection, on the grass, until the porch light turns on.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! This winter has been... challenging, to say the least. I have, however, realised, that writing is one of my passions and that I need to find time for it in order not to go batshit with the weather and isolation. So, this story is slowly coming to an end. Thank you for reading and commenting, your kudos and comments make my day when they come in.
> 
> There's homophobic violence mentioned and an antiquated slur used in this chapter (the long paragraph starting from "He leaves..." and ending with "...he could be next." that can safely be skipped if you don't need any of that in your fic).

Regulus cranes his neck to try and see over the fence in the distance, but the porch light only reaches so far. There’s whispering coming from that direction and it occurs to him that standing out in the open like this might not be too smart, so he puts out the light, draws out his wand and steps to the side.

“Coming, we’re coming,” Sirius calls from somewhere in the yard and Regulus can make out two dark shapes making their way towards the house. Remus says something, too quiet to overhear, and Sirius stifles a laugh.

“I was looking for you,” Regulus explains once they’re close enough. “We need to decide what to do next.”

“Absolutely,” Sirius says, untypically agreeable, and once he steps into the lighted hall, his wild hair and flushed face come into view, complement with the faint red marks on his throat. Lupin is right behind him, languid, smiling, and distinctly disheveled. They keep exchanging looks when they take off their shoes and hang their jackets on the hooks.

Regulus rolls up his eyes to heaven, but he also has to quench an intense feeling of envy and exclusion. It’s like they’re in their little bubble, where no one else could gain entrance, and for once he desperately wishes to be able to share something like that with someone; be on the inside, not on the outside. There’s more to it: the way the soft light catches Sirius’ face makes it absolutely clear that it’s not only his lauded handsomeness, but striking beauty, as if their family features converged on his face in the most appealing way possible.

Regulus catches a glimpse of his own face in the mirror in the hall. Seemingly the same stock as Sirius’, but roughly hewn, a caveman’s brow, broad nose, too-wide lips. How could he ever compete.

In the room where he and Artur are supposed to stay there are two convertible sofas made up to sleep, an old art deco armchair, and a coffee table, so he’s at a loss at where to sit. Sirius pushes by him and unselfconsciously plops down on the Oriental rug by the tiled stove.

“Ooh, that’s nice.” He breathes into his hands and rubs them together. “That’s cosy. The other two still upstairs?”

“Yeah.” Regulus makes for the armchair while Lupin settles down on the floor by one of the sofas. “They’re talking to Artur’s mother. Apparently, we can stay for a few days, but he’s concerned for his family’s safety.”

“So am I,” Lupin says, grave. “Quite frankly, we should be on the move tomorrow, and just rent a hotel room. A different one each night. Only that way can we be sure we do not put anyone here at risk.”

“Which brings me to what I’ve been wondering about.” Sirius crosses his legs and leans back on his hands. “How the hell have they found us anyway? It wasn’t your bloody tattoo again, was it?”

“No.” Regulus yanks at his cuff. “It can’t be. If you take any more out, you’ll see bone--”

“We don’t need to see it, do we?” Sirius pulls a face.

Regulus, of opposing mind, rolls the sleeve up and unties the bandage. There’s some new, pink skin encroaching at the edges of the blackened place where the Mark used to be. When raised to level with his eyes, there’s a clear dent in the surface of his forearm.

“See? Evans has taken all of it out. It’s not my tattoo, Sirius.”

“I agree,” Lupin says, propping his forearm on one of his knees. “If it were, they would have known exactly where we were, and wouldn’t have waited for three weeks to get to us. What makes me wonder is that they’d showed up at the train station before we even got there.”

“What are you saying?” Sirius squints at him.

“It’s as if they were tipped off that we were coming back from that Dobrocin place.”

“Tipped off by whom?”

“No idea. Who knew about us going to the country?”

“Barbara and Artur,” Regulus supplies. “Who we can probably rule out. Can we?”

Sirius and Remus exchange glances.

“Moody says to never rule out anyone,” Sirius says in a hollow tone. “But other than that, we--”

They look at each other again. Regulus sighs.

“You both spoke to James in the morning, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but James is like a brother--” Sirius forcibly stops himself and takes a deep breath. Regulus looks at the floor. “James and Lily are our closest friends, and if anyone got to them, then we are all royally fucked, what with them being in charge of the locket stuff.”

“I think we can safely rule the Potters out,” Lupin says coolly, after a beat. “Then who?”

“I hope you’re not thinking about me,” Regulus snipes at Sirius.

“Why no, I’m not.” Sirius calmly holds his gaze.

“That’s good, then.” Regulus says. “Because I have come clean to you about every single thing that had to do with my escape,” he adds, uncomfortable with the notion that Sirius might still be suspicious about him, and then Lupin shoots him a nervous glance. It’s quick, barely even there, but it conveys a clear warning not to delve into that topic with Sirius. Curious.

“I’m glad we’ve got it settled,” Sirius says, leaning back on his hands. “I was actually thinking more in terms of Barbara’s friends.”

“I’ve already asked her about that. She says she hasn’t told anyone where we were going and that she warned them to be wary of other Britons, should they show up at random.”

“Huh.”

“Maybe it wasn’t so clear cut,” Lupin muses. “Maybe they just put things together. Knew we’d been travelling the Muggle way, knew we’d been away, came to the train station.”

“They would have to learn we’d been in Cracow, first.” Sirius shakes his head. “There’s no way you can just _stumble_ onto information like that. There’s hundreds of cities in Europe and we could have been in any one of them. Hell, we could have been in Nepal for all they know.”

“Is there anyone else who knew we were leaving for Cracow?” Regulus asks.

All of a sudden Lupin perks up.

“Pete,” he says and there’s an interesting journey taking place on his face. “Pete knows. He was there when we were leaving, and you, Padfoot, you asked James to write him a letter on your behalf just this morning.”

“Wormy?” Sirius says, eyebrows arched. “That’s just coincidence. And Prongs might be addled sometimes, but he would never put our location in a letter to anyone. Even good ol’ Wormtail.”

“Why are you ruling him out, exactly?” Regulus asks, keeping his tone neutral.

“Well, he’s our mate,” Sirius says, like it’s self-explanatory. “Why would he even do anything like that?”

Regulus shrugs. Snape could probably say the same thing about him, though they weren’t really friends, were they? He just latched onto Regulus at some point hoping to gain more blood legitimacy, and Regulus was so starved for attention he didn’t really mind.

“No, that’s preposterous.” Sirius shakes his head. “It must be something else.”

“Maybe it’s your _mirror_ ,” Lupin says pointedly and they launch into a meandering discussion about the merits and flaws of said two-way mirror, which apparently is a point of contention for a reason that is not explicitly mentioned in the conversation. Regulus sinks into the armchair and buttons up his cuff. On the opposite side of the room from the tiled stove, he’s getting a little cold. He’ll need to dress warm for the night, if he’s to sleep here.

“Getting back to the topic of our further plans,” Lupin says finally, ostensibly glaring daggers at Sirius but with the upturned corners of his mouth telling another story. “Did Barbara mention anything about where we should be looking next?”

“She did, actually.” Regulus says, looking away. “There’s another Hoberg manor in the region. It’s a different branch of the family, but she suspects they might have inherited the artefact and taken it with them. We’re to investigate that tomorrow. Artur will go back to Cracow to check on things and retrieve our luggage.”

“He shouldn’t go alone.” Sirius stretches his arms above his head and stifles a yawn. “I’ll go with, that way we’ll cover all the bases. Hopefully not too early in the morning. I’m knackered.”

Regulus bites his tongue. Lupin conjures a polite if strained smile.

“Yes, this has been a very long day. Anyone know where the loo is?”

They point him to the loo. Soon enough, Sirius too gets up from his spot by the stove.

“You’ve got everything you need, yeah?”

“Like what?” Reglus frowns.

“I don’t know, stuff.” Sirius pushes his hands into his jeans pockets. “Warm socks.”

“Yeah.” He’ll have to sleep in a vest and forego wearing one tomorrow, but he’ll manage. “Why?”

“No reason. Good night.”

He leaves. Regulus waits for his turn in the bathroom and when he comes out, the room he’s supposed to sleep in is dark. There’s a snoring shape on one of the sofas that has to be Artur, and Regulus finds his way to the other one without bumping his shins on anything. He lies down and wraps himself tightly in the blankets and tries not to think about the uncertainty of his future. Where will they sleep tomorrow? Is he ever going to be able to dress decently again? Will he have to get a _job_? It’s mortifying, but still better than what he’d come from: the ever-present threat of being recognized as a blood traitor, ironically, because of the way he’d been born. A shiver goes down his spine at the memory of Alastair Fawley, the invert, as the Pureblood posse called him. Regulus had always had his suspicions about him, but lacked both the words and the circumstances to ever broach the subject, and then it was taken out his hands: the people they both used to call friends and acquaintances somehow got to know about Alastair and the fate that befell him made Regulus never call them friends and acquaintances again. The effort that he made in order not to show his anger and despair at it was only second to walking into that damned ice-cold cave and his his body bore the brunt of it: a giant lump in his throat that made him unable to speak for hours, stone-hard knots in his back and his neck, uncontrollable tears dropping into his dinner three days later. Mother asked him if the soup left that much to be desired, in that dry tone of hers, and he shook his head, unable to tell her just how easily he could be next.

Sirius and Artur leave shortly after breakfast, Sirius blabbing inanely about his motorcycle the whole time, Artur nodding with a blank expression.

“I wonder how he’s going to survive nobody understanding a word he’s saying,” Lupin remarks as the two silhouettes--Artur’s short and bulky, Sirius’ tall and angular with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket--disappear into the morning mist.

“Might be good for him. Humility and all,” Regulus says. It doesn’t escape his attention that this means he’s staying alone with Remus, and he has a brief vision of how the day will go: the two of them focused on academic research, dressed in jumpers, thighs pressed together at the little table, Remus taking him out to smoke against a backdrop of dramatically leafless trees.

Suffice to say, it doesn’t go according to plan. Artur’s mother puts them to work immediately, having sniffed out their inability to say no--both out of politeness and incomprehension--and they lug around wood and old furniture for hours, unable to use magic under her watchful eye. To Regulus it’s a month of Auror boot camp pressed into one morning. By lunchtime, his arms and legs are burning and he’s dragging his feet after Lupin, whose stamina is astonishing--which makes Regulus very pointedly not think about where that could be put to good use. What makes matters worse, he doesn’t know how to do virtually _anything_ around the house. When Artur’s mother finally notices that, she says something to Barbara that makes her stifle a giggle.

“What was that?” he asks, eyes narrowed, while Lupin rolls up his sleeves to do whatever you do with a big greasy pot.

“She called you a _little prince_ ,” Barbara says and while that’s a little rude, it’s also fair. Artur’s mother adds something in her crispy Polish that has Barbara tilt her head in curiosity. “She says when she was a little girl, before the war, her family also used to have servants. But she learned quickly, afterwards.”

Artur’s mother is dressed in a grey jumper, tatty trousers and galoshes, but there’s an authority and dignity to her that wouldn’t be out of place in the Black portrait gallery, so he targets her with a hapless smile meant to convey their shared experience. Artur’s mother ruffles his hair and Lupin, in his infinite patience, shows him how to scrub the pot.

After all that exertion, he’s in dire need of a wash. The downstairs bathroom is tiny and immediately fills up with steam from charming the water hot, so he pushes the door ajar when he’s combing his hair. It shows in the reflection in the mirror: a crack between the door and the frame and, in the background, a section of the corridor and the interior of one of the rooms.

He’s just finishing up when there’s a flash of movement in the reflection. Regulus freezes with one of his arms up, doing his parting, and he sees Lupin, hunched over, possibly tying his boots, peering into the bathroom. Their eyes meet in the mirror. Regulus flushes all over, aware of his bony shoulder blades and narrow chest. It’s as if he’s never been so avidly looked at in his life, despite this being just a glance, and rather than slouch it makes him want to straighten his back, tilt his head, touch his hair with an unnecessary flourish. He lets out the breath he’s been holding and pulls the comb slowly down the side of his head, making sure the hair falls evenly to the line of his jaw and his neck.

Lupin disappears from view. Then, steps come up to the bathroom door and stop at the door frame.

“I’m going out for a smoke.” Lupin clears his throat. “Do you care to join me?”

“In a minute.”

He dresses quickly in his usual fare: shirt, blazer, greatcoat. Outside, it is chilly, the landscape as clear and crispy as it only gets on sunny winter days. Lupin is leaning against the wall, two cigarettes tucked between his fingers.

“So, Barbara’s talked to the matriarch and told her we need some time to ourselves,” he says by way of greeting.

“Oh thank Merlin. I am, of course, eternally grateful for the shelter, but I would really rather repay her in any other way.”

“I don’t think they are in dire need of demon summoning circles,” Lupin says with a wry twist of his mouth. It’s a clear throwback to their mission on Hirta.

“Do you reckon that’s the only service I can offer?” Regulus asks and regrets instantly that he did, but it’s too late. “I’ll have you know I was amazing at Runes and Arithmancy,” he tacks on lamely, but Lupin doesn’t follow up on what could be construed as blatant flirting.

“I’m worried Sirius won’t be back fast enough for us to move on from here.”

“Surely another night can’t hurt?”

“You don’t know that, considering it’s still not clear just how they’re tracking us.”

Regulu rubs his forearm through the sleeve.

“Are you suspecting your friend?” he asks, off-hand.

“Peter? It does seem preposterous, but then.” Lupin wrinkles his nose. “I’m afraid it doesn’t sit well with me because--well, he _is_ our mate. Which makes him an excellent target for the villains of the piece.”

“I agree,” he says and Lupin glances at him sharply. “Out of a Slytherin point of view. And, er, ex-villain. Your Wormy does seem like the weakest link in your group. And I’m not saying that because he couldn’t carry a conversation for his life.”

“How do you mean then?” Lupin leans towards him, the cigarette forgotten in his hand.

“Well, based on the group dynamics.” Regulus tucks his hair behind the ear. “I can’t speak to his character, because I don’t really know him, but I’ve noticed that he’s sidelined quite a bit. It was the four of you originally, wasn’t it?” Lupin nods in assent. “And now Potter is married, and as such part of a couple that is focused on building their own, separate life, and you two--well. You form the other couple. Two couples out of his school mates. And he is alone. That can be quite alienating.”

Lupin’s shoulders sag. He takes a pensive puff of the cigarette.

“Would you say--as an _ex-villain_ \--that there are any operations that might be focused on identifying and contacting such weak links in our ranks?”

“I’m not aware of any.” Regulus shakes his head. “But knowing the minds and methods of the Dark--of _Voldemort’s_ ranks, I presume there might be.”

“Hm.”

They finish their cigarettes in an awkward silence. Regulus chastises himself for bringing this up--he remembers how inseparable his brother’s little group used to be. Pandora and Basil and him have probably never had that kind of profound, intimate friendship where it seemed that anyone outside of the group was intruding on their private space, disrupting their particular togetherness. Now, in retrospect, the element binding them so closely together has obviously been Lupin’s secret: four boys against a werewolf-hating world, their endless ridiculous antics drawing attention from Lupin’s absences and scars.

“Please, don’t take this the wrong way,” he tells Remus. “I do not intend to cast suspicion on your mate or to make Sirius think I’m sowing suspicion--”

“No, it’s a very good point, actually,” Remus says, somewhat hollowly. “If anything, we should be caring about Pete more than we do, or at least pay him a little attention.”

Regulus narrows his eyes. There’s a lot more to dig into here--like the possibility of there being more of these Animagi, because he honestly can’t see Potter not participating in something Sirius is devoting his time to--but judging by the way Lupin all but disappears when lycanthropy is mentioned he knows any related question will put an immediate end to the conversation. Something comes to the surface of his mind, seemingly randomly, but he doesn’t recognize it as treacherous until it leaves his mouth.

“How did you and Sirius even--um--well--”

“Get together?” The corners of Remus’ mouth go up a little, and Regulus would pay a lot of his mother’s money to see more of that. “Do you really want to know?”

It’s a verification of his willingness to take up the topic. Regulus struggles to control his face, where only a politely curious expression should be residing, no scowls or nervous grins or anything of the sort. There’s definitely the potential of hurt here, but learning too--Sirius and Remus set the precedent for him, provide proof that there’s a light at the end of the winding tunnel.

“Yeah.” He shrugs and slides his hands into the pockets of his coat, ostensibly because of the cold.

“Uh, it’s uh--either a very long story or a very short one, I guess.” Lupin even stumbles over the words with some kind of weird grace. “Er, I don’t think I would be able to tell the long one though--it’s embarrassing. The short one is too, actually.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“No, it is. We were visiting James after sixth year.” Lupin lights another cigarette. There’s something in his face--a light, a glow--that Regulus finds difficult to look at. “His parents always threw these lavish parties in their garden, the highlight of summer. They invited all the blood traitors and half-bloods they knew, which was quite a lot. And the Potters--they always had mountains of food prepared for these events, which I suppose is the Pureblood standard.”

“Oh, yes. More than anyone could ever eat.”

“Which we put to the test every year. Anyway, at one point we ran out of cake, and James’ mother asked me to get some from the pantry, and there were so many there I was completely overwhelmed. I hadn’t the faintest which one to take. As I was standing there, in quiet but mounting despair, Sirius seeked me out. He had that weird light in his eyes--and was obviously nervous, all jittery.” He grins, eyes unfocused, or rather focused on a memory Regulus isn’t a part of. “I remember the weirdest things, like his hands being all sweaty. I was rambling about those bloody cakes and he grabbed me with those sweaty hands and kissed me. I put my elbow straight into the raspberry cheesecake out of shock.”

Regulus chortles despite the valiant attempt to remain serious.

“I told you it was embarrassing,” Lupin days, mock-offended.

“I’d say it’s mostly Sirius’ fault. Why did he ever think ambushing you in somebody’s pantry was a good idea?”

“Right?”

Envy, not blood, is pulsing in Regulus’ veins. Not even for Lupin, his ridiculous, kind, scarred face, but this--sharing a moment like a kiss in a pantry, ruining someone’s cheesecake. Recounting it so joyfully several years later. He sneaks a glance at Lupin, who is worrying at his thumbnail, his head down. Before Regulus can say anything, a window opens and Barbara calls from up above.

“Dinner’s ready!”

Lupin gives him a tight-lipped smile and vanishes inside. Regulus takes his time undressing and washing his hands, holding on to the naive and gleeful warmth that has filled him during their conversation. He’d like to stuff it into a box and place it under his bed, but he currently owns neither, and the warmth evaporates anyway as he climbs the steep and narrow stairs to the first floor. The kitchen teems with people and noise, so he stops at the threshold, just taking it all in. It’s another learning experience, kitchens, houses, where people spend time together and are happy for it.

Barbara waves him in and sits him down between herself and one of Arthur’s sisters, Kasia. Artur’s mother serves a dish that looks very exotic, but which turns out to be meat mixed with rice wrapped in cabbage and boiled in tomato sauce. The conversation is stunted due to him and Remus stuffing themselves with the food and going through Barbara for translation.

After the meal, Artur’s mother puts out a yeast cake with crumble topping and herds the girls to their rooms to do homework. Regulus sags in his seat, sleepy with the warmth and the food, and Remus makes all three of them grain coffee.

“You’re not too tired for a bit of research, I hope?” Barbara asks, stacking books on the table. “Don’t worry, I’ve done most of the reading already, at least what I could. Any one of you know German, by any chance?”

They both shake their heads.

“Nope. Not on the curriculum in Hogwarts.”

“Too bad. A lot of the sources on the Hochbergs are in German.” She opens a thick dusty book to show inky black, illegible type that barely looks like Latin script.

“What’s that?” Lupin asks, leaning in to inspect it. Regulus takes a whiff of his smoky, ginger smell, and leans back. “Is that even German?”

“Yes, it’s the fraktur, a German typeface. It fell out of use after the Nazis abolished it.”

“It does look Nazi.” Lupin raises his brows. “What about other sources? And weren’t they called _Hobergs_ , not _Hochbergs_?

“They were! There were two branches of the same family: the one we visited in Dobrocin and another one out of Pszczyna, or _Pless_ , in German.”

“Pless seems a lot easier to say.” Regulus crosses his arms on his chest.

“The ones out of Pless, _von Pless_ , established another way of writing the name and stuck to it.” Barbara points out the surname in the angular German typeface, next to a black-and-white picture of a monumental castle on a hilltop. “They used to own another castle in Silesia, one of the biggest and most beautiful ones in the region: Furstenstein, or Książ, in Polish.”

“That’s--magnificent. But you said _used to_?” Regulus frowns. “Are they gone, like the rest of the aristocracy?”

“I think there’s still a Hochberg prince living somewhere abroad.” Barbara takes a sip of the steaming coffee. “But their fortune is gone. This, however, should be interesting to you: the last princess of Książ, Daisy Hochberg von Pless, was British. She was born--hold on a second.” She cracks her notebook open and squints at her notes. “Cornwallis-West, born and raised in Castle Ruthin in Wales.”

“Oh, I know that castle!” Lupin straightens. “It’s in Northern Wales. My parents took me there when I was a child. It’s a hotel now, I think.”

“So she was a British princess married to a German prince in a Polish castle?” Regulus arches a brow.

“You could say so.” Barbara waves her hand. “The ethnicity of the region of Silesia is still somewhat controversial, even if our government likes to pretend it’s Polish down to the bone. Speaking of the princess, it’s a fascinating story. The von Pless family lived in the castle since the 1700s, through all the wars that tore across the region, through Napoleon, the First World War, until the 1930s, when the prince moved to England and died. Only the elderly princess and her cousin were staying at the castle. It was seized by the Nazi forces in 1944 and renovated for Hitler’s leisure as well as a secret underground project.”

“Secret Nazi underground project?” Lupin says, voice thick with incredulity.

“It’s all true, I swear,” Barbara holds her hands up, mildly offended. “They’ve allegedly dug out a shaft connecting the courtyard with--eh, let’s get back to that later. The princess dies at the end of the war and is buried in the family mausoleum, which is where I would suspect their family heirlooms could also be hidden. However, in 1945, the castle and the mausoleum are sacked by the Soviet Army.”

“How many times has this castle been sacked, exactly?”

“Countless.” Barbara shrugs. “It’s a shell. I read that after the war a number of antiques and historical treasures could be bought at local markets for a penny. The library is lost, possibly transported to Russia. The castle was burnt and ransacked and left abandoned until a few years ago, when renovations to ballrooms were made. It now houses a small zoo and a geophysical observatory.”

“And the princess?” Regulus asks, utterly confused by all the armies mentioned.

Barbara blows out her cheeks.

“From what I know, after the mausoleum had been desecrated by the Soviets, the princess’ body was moved to an Evangelical graveyard in the city. The bad news is that the graveyard was demolished six years ago to build a motorway and a new neighbourhood.”

“Well, was it moved anywhere?”

“No. It was--you have to understand. The majority of Poles are Catholic. After the war, when the borders changed--well, the German inhabitants had to leave, leaving behind their churches, graveyards, schools, homes.”

“But that’s,” Lupin interjects, “forgive me, but that’s just barbaric. That’s still cultural heritage. Historical sites. Religious--”

“No, believe me, as a historian, I condemn that. As a person whose both grandfathers survived the war purely by chance, I--I understand the source of that disrespect. The Nazis--who were mostly German--conquered, occupied and persecuted us. We’re a wounded nation and, uh, you probably know how wounded people cannot be counted on to be very rational or sensible sometimes.”

She falls silent. After a beat, Lupin nods in comprehension, or maybe commiseration, a far-away look in his eyes.

“That is still bad news, however. Is there any way we could find her grave there?”

“Perhaps searching for magic signatures? But that’s still assuming she had the artefact with her, that it hadn’t been stolen by the Soviets.”

“Or the Nazis.”

“I don’t think it would have been buried with her,” Regulus says, glad to finally make a contribution to the conversation. “A priceless family heirloom, in the middle of the war? I would have hidden it well, Muggle-repellent-super--tough-wards-well.”

“Sirius is going to love this,” Lupin interjects.

“As for the other possibility,” Regulus continues, “if it had been stolen or found by the locals, it might still be in the area. Are there any legends or tales about charmed mirrors there?”

“Not that I know of,” Barbara says. “The heirloom everyone has been looking for is not the mirror, but a seven-meter-long rope of pearls, gifted to Daisy by the prince upon their wedding. There’s a golden train, too.”

“A golden train--”

“Not a train made of gold _per se_ , but a train rumoured to transport tonnes of stolen artworks and goods from all over Poland, from the Second World War. Some people believe it to be buried underground somewhere in the vicinity of the castle.”

Regulus and Remus exchange looks. Barbara snorts.

“I know how that sounds. But a lot of things did disappear from our museums and castles, and they might be stored somewhere. And that could be where a certain antique mirror is hidden, too.”

“Do you know anyone that could show us around?” Remus drags one of the books closer to him and looks at the map of the region.

“Not really.” Barbara shrugs. “I don’t know anyone from there. My mother has a friend in Wrocław, but we’d have to go through her, and we can’t, or they’ll know I’m doing something highly illegal and they’ll come back from Lebanon to yell at me all day.”

“What about magical creatures?” Regulus asks. “Like Mr Bonifacy from the library. Are there any elves living there? Or other creatures, like centaurs or goblins?”

“Are goblins a thing? I thought they were just antisemitic caricatures.”

“Goblins are definitely real,” Lupin replies, brows furrowed, “but that’s a good point. Magical creatures are a great source of knowledge that wizards tend to ignore.”

“There are chorts around, probably.” Upon their obvious incomprehension, she points to her feet and adds: “Er--hooved creatures. I wouldn’t call them demons, they’re a kind of a goat-like trickster--”

“ _Bies_?” Lupin asks, animated. “Is that another word for it?”

“Yes, that’s it! They’re really rare, I don’t think it would be easy to find one. There’s one more lead we could follow up on, though.”

“Oh?” Lupin closes the book. Regulus stares at his big hand on the cover.

“The princess published her diaries. In English. They are probably difficult to find here, but you could maybe ask your friends in the UK to look into them?”

“That’s brilliant.” Lupin looks at Regulus, who pretends not to be caught staring and flashes a polite smile. “We’ll do that, see if that gets us anywhere. Do we want to go tomorrow already?”

“Sure. Catch the morning train to Wrocław and go from there. Take a look at the castle and the mausoleum first and see where that gets us.”

“Okay.” Lupin nods. “That’s a good plan.”

The conversation shifts to the magical creatures of Poland and Regulus’ attention strays, and not to pleasant if guilty matters such as Lupin’s thigh next to his but to the threat of being hunted down again. He glances over his shoulder and through the kitchen window outside, but the glass only shows a reflection of their silhouettes and the white icebox in the background, so if Bellatrix and her cronies are prowling outside, he won’t know. Suddenly, he’s not certain he’s put up the wards, either.

“Excuse me, I need to go check on something.”

He leaves, Barbara’s and Lupin’s surprised gazes following him to the door. Downstairs, he checks the wards, which are up, and hears voices coming from the driveway. Wand at the ready, bated breath, he waits in a perfect defensive stance, practiced for hours with his duelling tutor in the study on the second floor of their townhouse.

There are heavy footfalls and a sharp knock on the door.

“We’re back,” Sirius says.

“How can I know it’s really you?” Regulus asks through the door, only half-joking.

“Oh, Merlin.” Sirius laughs, then says something Regulus doesn’t catch, presumably to Artur. “Okay, so when I was little, I was scared of the mummy man coming and taking me away.”

Regulus snorts. “All right, I’m opening the door.” He drops the wards and lets them in, pink-cheeked and smelling of the outside. “Hello Artur. Sirius. I don’t think the mummy man knows you’re here.”

“That’s enormously witty, thanks.” Sirius comes bearing a loaded backpack. Artur also has one on, along with two heavy grocery bags in his hands. “We’ve done some shopping at Baltona. You know, as a thank you for letting us stay. Where’s Moony?”

“Upstairs. Are you hungry?” He mimes eating, to which Artur, taking off his boots, nods animatedly. “I’ll put the kettle on. Everything all right?”

“Yes, we haven’t seen anyone. It’s horribly cold, so I got a parka.” He shows off a padded, khaki monstrosity that Regulus somehow hasn’t noticed before. “D’you like it?”

“It’s hideous.”

“It’s warmer than my jacket, that’s what it is.”

Upstairs, there’s an enormous ruckus over the shopping and the parka and the excursion in overall. The kitchen fills with the smell of reheated cabbage and people, all talking a mile a minute in two languages. Regulus tucks himself away on a stool in the corner and observes: the moment Artur crosses the threshold, Barbara falls into his arms. Lupin and Sirius just share a look, but in terms of heat and intensity it’s close to an _Incendio_.

According to Sirius--and Artur’s input _via_ Barbara--there’s no trace of the Lestranges in Cracow, and no way to know whether or not they had been taken in by the agents. Regulus reckons it will come up as rumours of an international incident within the Ministry of Magic and Dumbledore’s organization will probably pick up on it. As for their base in Barbara’s flat, it was apparently broken into by wizards, judging from the broken charms, and searched, most probably for the Horcrux. Barbara’s eyes get glassy and her chin wobbly--sweet Merlin, Regulus will not even imagine his parents’ reaction to being burgled, however improbable that would be--and Sirius and Artur talk over one another describing how they put the flat to rights.

“It will be all right, I swear. We’ve even made up all the beds.”

“ _Nikt nic nie zauważy, przyrzekam. Jest czyściej, niż było!_ ”

Once the crisis has been managed and Barbara consoled with hot tea with honey, they discuss their plans for tomorrow. Sirius is, as expected, enormously excited at the prospect of practicing his cursebreaking skills. Lupin doesn’t mention their conversation about Peter Pettigrew, but insists on listening in on Sirius talking to Potter later. It’s a good strategy: if anyone accosts them at the castle, it will be easy to trace it back to princess Daisy’s memoirs, and anyone involved in acquiring and delivering it. It’s actually Slytherin-level cunning, and Regulus is mildly impressed to see it put into play so smoothly by one of the most notorious Gryffindors of his school years.

Regulus drifts off to reorganize his luggage as well as mentally prepare for another change of environment, about sixth or seventh in the span of seven weeks. He’s sitting cross-legged, pairing and rolling his socks, when something outside the window catches his eye.

It’s an animal instinct by now: falling into a crouch with his wand out, pointing it at--apparently--the first fat snowflake that had the audacity to pass in front of his window this evening. There are more coming, settling quietly onto the windowsill and the porch and the yard, lit eerily by the electric lights of Artur’s house.

He curls his fingers against the sill. He has no idea if snow in late November is par for the course in this part of Europe, but it instills a sense of longing in Regulus, an itch to check on Mother. It’s almost time to choose and order hand-drawn Christmas cards, a staple of their holiday preparations, and he imagines Mother would want to send them out now more than ever, to maintain the only aspect of their family left alive: their image.

 _Bloody hell, what am I going to do about Christmas_ , he thinks with dread, as if it were an issue of choosing an appropriate set of robes and not being hunted across the continent.

He walks to the light switch and flicks it off. The snow falling outside is soft and blurry, like a veil settling over the silent landscape. Remus and Sirius are talking in the adjacent room, Sirius’ voice switching from warm and deep to playful and high, one that he doesn’t use with anyone other than Lupin. There’s a click that Regulus recognizes as the record player coming to life and Lupin protesting:

“Don’t put that on, it’s too close to home.”

“Hold on, I think Prongs is calling. Prongs? Have you got the book already? What, are you having me on? What the hell?!”

Something must be wrong. Regulus is on his feet and in the hall in a second.

“Now Reg--oh, there you are.” Sirius is holding his two-way mirror in hand. “Er, this might sound daft, but it’s James for you.”

“James? Potter?” Regulus takes the mirror Sirius hands him and sees the reflection of Potter’s face move inside.

“Yes, that’s right,” Potter says, angling the mirror so that mostly his forehead and huge, brown, serious eyes are visible. “Say, I’ve got a question for you, Reggie boy. Who would you say are your two best mates? As in, if you weren’t in your current exquisite company, who would you be hanging out with?”

“Uh--”

“Just don’t say Snivellus, please,” Sirius grumbles from across the hall.

“Er, I guess Basil Beaufort and Pandora Strickley,” Regulus blurts out, ears burning. “Why, why would you want to know this at this point in time?”

“Well, I have to admit that this goes against several of our security procedures, but--” Now, it’s Potter’s index finger making an appearance in the mirror. “But, I have a soft spot for the power of friendship. Let’s just say that if I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t ever give it a rest, so I had no choice other than to agree to let your mates talk to you.”

The image in the mirror flashes and blurs, as if it’s handed over to someone else, and to Regulus’ utmost surprise it’s Pandora’s round, blushing face that fills it this time.

“Hello, Reginald.”

“Pand, what is going on--”

“I’m here with Basil,” she says in her calm, measured way. “We were forced to blackmail James Potter the tiniest bit to see you, but we’ve been very, very worried about you.”

“I know you told us you would be busy this fall, but you haven’t answered any letters--” Basil’s frowning face swims into view, framed by his unruly hair. “And with all the news and hearsay--”

“Yes, that’s right. I’m unavailable by owl. I’m sorry, it’s all very complicated and I can’t tell you--”

“Anything, we know. Potter already explained the gravity of the situation to us. So we’re not asking where you are or what you’re doing. It’s just brilliant to see you in one piece.”

Regulus’ eyes begin to sting. He swallows something emotional and probably inappropriate to say, and instead angles the mirror so that they don’t see his face.

“Please disregard my Muggle disguise. I miss my tailor something fierce. And your mint tea, Pand. Tell me something about you, I am wilting here without any news on you two. How’s college, what I am missing by being away--”

Pandora and Basil launch into an uncoordinated tale about their first weeks in college, Pand’s mean-spirited roommate and Basil’s adventures with a cursed beaker he picked up by accident in Diagon Alley. Sirius withdraws to his and Lupin’s room for the duration, but Regulus is sure he’s listening in. Regulus doesn’t care; he drinks the words from his friends’ lips. To think this could have been his life would be to delude himself, but it doesn’t mean he can’t want to live it vicariously.

“We need to go,” Pandora says eventually. “Potter has been giving us bizarre hand signals for a few minutes now. You look really nice with your hair like that.”

“Thanks, Pand. I’ll write you as soon as I can, I promise.”

“See you, Reginald!”

They hand the mirror over. He can hear Basil in the background, asking Potter about the way it’s charmed, and then it fades to black. He’s staring at it forlornly when Sirius comes in to take it back.

“That was really nice of them,” he says. His hair is up and he’s wearing a Muggle t-shirt with a hole in it. “They’re the Ravenclaws, right? The ones that brought you to that party back in September?”

“Yeah, that’s them.” Regulus is slightly surprised that he remembers. “We were supposed to go to Merlin College together, but that didn’t pan out, somehow.”

“You can go next year.”

“You think?” He imbues his tone with too much venom and sees Sirius bristle. “I mean, sure, if that’s ever within the realm of possibility.”

“I guess you might see that in the mirror, when we find it.” Sirius shrugs. “But hey, weren’t you supposed to marry Adelina Selwyn after graduation, too? Glad that didn’t work out, huh?” He claps Regulus on the shoulder and leaves him standing there, non-plussed.

Regulus can hear Lupin asking about arranged marriages in the adjacent room and closes the door on Sirius’ explanation of their undoubtedly antiquated and perverted traditions. When he finishes packing and goes to bed, the snow keeps falling, rendering the world silent and white.

In the morning, they set out for the train station, decked out in winter outfits partially supplied by Artur’s family, and supplies packed and prepared by his mother. Artur kisses Barbara goodbye and his sisters wave them off from the porch. Regulus would have gladly stayed there a few more days if not for the threat of Bellatrix and the Lestranges sweeping down on them. All things considered, he hasn’t expected himself to like Muggleness this much--the only thing he truly despises is transportation, for its unnecessary complexness and mind-numbing sluggishness. By the time they reach their destination, the dark is falling, and the magnificent castle of Książ is hardly discernible in the gloom. It’s impressive all the same, a dark hulking silhouette at the top of a hill.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Lupin asks when Barbara leads them away from the road and into the forest. It’s dark, the town outskirts lying a mile or so behind them.

“There’s supposed to be a shortcut here, according to the tourist guide.” Barbara squints at the book by the light of her wand. “Maybe we should stick to the road though. This forest doesn’t look particularly becoming--”

“There’s a trail here!” Sirius points to a patch of trodden snow. “Looks like someone walked it today. Multiple someones, judging from the footprints.”

He hovers over the tracks not unlike a dog, casting a jagged shadow onto the snow. Lupin pretends not to be sniffing the air, but most definitely is.

“We can stick to the road if you don’t want to go through the forest, Barbara.”

“Please, don’t treat me like a child just because I’m the only girl here,” Barbara snaps at him. Regulus grins at her ferocity, but the smile quickly falters when he realizes there are probably a lot of dark tight underground spaces in his immediate future. “I just don’t want anyone to break a leg walking into something in the dark.”

“I’ll scout it out,” Sirius says, slipping his backpack off. “You cast a warming charm and stay here. Be back in a quarter or so.”

He flashes them a smile and disappears under the cover of the trees. Regulus pricks up his ears and hears wet, open-mouthed panting. It’s not out of the question that a man would be breathing this loudly when exerting himself, but his imagination sends him an image of a big black dog bounding through the snow.

“I’m sorry,” Lupin says to Barbara after casting the warming charm. “I did not intend to imply anything of the sort. Like I said yesterday, I am eternally grateful that you carry on with us in the face of obvious danger.”

“It’s all right.” She waves her hand. “This hunt for the Vortex is just as much my mission now as yours, if only as a guardian of our magical history. I just remembered the ravine you fell down last month--was it? Wouldn’t want the same to happen here, and these hills are quite rocky.”

“Absolutely,” Lupin says coolly, taking off his gloves and rubbing his hands together.

Regulus struggles to recall any ravines Lupin has fallen down recently, and then it dawns on him that this must have been the lie his brother and Remus told Barbara when Remus had showed up bruised and battered after the full moon. They lucked out that Barbara was tired and hungover after the party and did not pry into it too much, but he doesn’t suppose it will work again.

Come to think of it, that was almost a month ago. He looks up, but the clouds are covering the sky completely. For a while, they just stand in silence, inhaling the warm air inside the warming charm bubble and stomping their still freezing feet. Then, Regulus glances at Lupin, who catches his eye, and Regulus could swear that the strange shine is back in his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Artur's: “Nikt nic nie zauważy, przyrzekam. Jest czyściej, niż było!” - "Nobody is going to notice anything. It's neater than it was!"
> 
> Baltona was a Polish company acting mainly on a duty-free market in Poland during communist rule - it was the best-stocked store in the day.
> 
> [History of the Książ Castle](https://www.ksiaz.walbrzych.pl/en/) \- all true, together with Princess Daisy and the numerous sackings. The existence of the golden train hasn't been confirmed, but it lives on in our collective imagination.  
> The underground city/the tunnels built by Nazis in the region haven't been fully investigated yet (most of them are buried in concrete), but definitely exist. You can see the uncovered parts [here](https://sztolnie.pl/en/) or [here](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g1087301-d6621302-Reviews-Riese_Complex_Wlodarz-Jugowice_Lower_Silesia_Province_Southern_Poland.html). 
> 
> I strongly recommend visiting the region of Wałbrzych if you have the chance - there's a lot to see there.


End file.
